FBI Director Kash Patel has been mocked online after responding to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, telling demonstrators that if you “hit a cop, you’re going to jail.”
“Doesn’t matter where you came from, how you got here, or what movement speaks to you. If the local police force won’t back our men and women on the thin blue line, we @FBI will,” Patel wrote on X on Saturday.
Social media users were quick to point out the different stance taken by the administration in relation to the January 6 rioters – hundreds of whom were pardoned by President Donald Trump.
During the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in 2021, more than 140 police officers were injured. One, Brian Sicknick, died the following day and several others took their own lives in the days and weeks after the attack. The rioters had been urged to go up to the Capitol and “fight like hell or you won’t have a country” on the day his election defeat to Joe Biden was being certified. Trump was criminally charged over his actions although the charges were dropped when he was re-elected in 2024.
Patel’s tweet on Saturday night prompted some social media users to point out the irony. “Unless you’re doing it for Trump,” one user responded to Patel’s comment, with another adding “Unless you are trying to overturn an election.”
“But if you do it wearing Trump merch while rioting at the US Capitol, you’ll get a pardon, right, Kash?” another user responded. More users piled in, sharing pictures and videos of the clashes between police and demonstrators on January 6.
“Interesting,” one user captioned the photo.
On his first day back in office, Trump granted pardons to around 1,500 people who had been charged or convicted for their role in the attack, even those who had been convicted of violently assaulting police officers.
The Trump administration is now planning to pay millions in compensation to the family of Ashli Babbitt, one of the pro-Trump rioters, who was shot dead inside the Capitol.
During his confirmation hearing for FBI Director, Patel distanced himself from the pardons, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I have included in that group specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6.
“I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”
The FBI Director seemed not to be the only Trump official failing to see the irony of their remarks on Saturday.
“The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil; a dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK,” wrote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“Under President Trump, violence & destruction against federal agents & federal facilities will NOT be tolerated. It’s COMMON SENSE.”
However more users were concerned about Hegseth’s threat that active duty U.S. Marines, stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton, may be mobilized if needed. “They are on high alert,” he wrote.
It comes after tense confrontations between police and demonstrators took place in LA on Friday, in response to operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who arrested at least 44 people on immigration violations, before starting again on Saturday at a Home Depot in the Paramount section of the city.
