'Cynical' Trump hit for attending officer's wake while backing cop-beating Jan. 6 rioters
When former President Donald Trump visited the wake of fallen New York police officer Jonathan Diller Thursday, he played up his credentials of being the candidate that stands up for law and order.
But that smacks of "cynical hypocrisy," wrote Michael Daly in a scathing column for The Daily Beast.
As he stood with mourners, Daly could hear the "Justice for All" anthem playing in his head, a tribute to the jailed January 6 defendants that Trump calls patriots — and that's a big problem,
Diller is believed to have been shot in the stomach by Guy Rivera, an alleged career criminal, while on patrol in Queens, with disturbing video appearing to show him screaming in pain after the shot was fired.
"The producers who had spliced in a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and marketed the song as 'Justice for All' have never identified the particular singers," wrote Daly, who covered the NYPD and a New York City reporter and columnist for decades.
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"But an analysis by Just Security found that 17 of the 20 Jan. 6 prisoners in the facility around the time of the recording had been arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers. Among them was Peter Stager, who is serving four years for beating D.C. Police Officer Blake Miller as he lay head-first, face-down on the Capitol steps.
"Video captured Stager striking the defenseless cop at least three times with a flagpole that had an American flag attached. Court papers show that Stager subsequently stood over and cursed another officer who had been dragged into the crowd. 'Every single one of those Capitol law enforcement officers, death is the remedy,' Stager was recorded saying during the riot. 'That is the only remedy they get.'"
After Diller's wake, Trump posted to Truth Social that he will, "Always stand with" police." A spokesman for the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York told Daly he didn't know who had invited the ex-president to intend.
"Trump was apparently counting on everybody forgetting the 140 officers the DOJ says were assaulted at the Capitol by people he calls 'patriots' and 'hostages,'" wrote Daly.
"He used a very different word to describe 34-year-old Guy Rivera, a career criminal arrested in connection with the officer’s killing, calling him a 'thug' and saying that he should never have been released from lockup. Trump was saying exactly what Diller’s grieving comrades would want to hear — sentiments that have led many law-enforcement officers in New York and elsewhere to imagine he has their interests at heart, even though he has proven with his actions that he does not."
"There is no reason to pay attention to anything Trump says on Long Island today. Diller’s brother-in-inlaw, Joseph McCauley, had already publicly said what needed to be said about him at a candlelight vigil the night before," concluded Daly. "McCauley ... said of this fallen officer something that we should be able to say about those we elevate to our highest office. 'I will forever be a better person because of him.'"