Michael Fanone, a CNN analyst, was brought on to discuss his feelings about the Trump indictment Wednesday night. He said that his feeling about the indictment of Trump over January 6th was comparable to how he felt upon hearing that Osama Bin Laden was killed by American special forces. Bin Laden was the terrorist leader of al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the infamous September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center (and other locations in the United States).
“When I first learned about the indictment, I had a long conversation with a friend of mine, Ryan Riley, and I told him how proud I felt to be an American at that moment much in the way that I did when I learned our military had killed Osama bin Laden. I just felt incredibly proud” said Michael Fanone.
His CNN colleague was a bit taken aback by the comparison and asked him, “These two [events] seem comparable to you? … Why that comparison in particular?”
Fanone replied, “I believe they are comparable.” After a few seconds of awkward silence, the colleague asked: “in what way?” Fanone just responded, “Absolutely,” and after a few seconds more of awkward silence started to try to answer the question.
“Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist who committed horrific acts against the American people and against our Republic and I believe that Donald Trump is a terrorist who committed horrific acts against the American people” elaborated Fanone. In Fanone’s statement, there is a reveal where he only ascribes Bin Laden with one act against the American people whereas Trump is attributed with multiple acts against the people.
The colleague said, “You can imagine that this is a very eye-brow-raising statement to say the least – the notion of Osama Bin Laden and the comparison to Donald Trump likely speaks to how deeply you have been concerned and have felt about all of this but are you concerned that statements like that or the rhetoric surrounding what his role has been is going to cloud people’s view of this indictment as a fair process?”
Fanone replied, “I think that the only person or people whose view matters with regards to this indictment are the jurors who will eventually be sat and listen to the facts and ultimately make a judgement as to whether or not Donald Trump is guilty of the charges that Jack Smith and the Department of Justice have brought forward.”
That jury trial, should it come to that, would likely as of now be in the District of Columbia, an area which is heavily biased in favor of the Democrats and overzealous against Republican defendants. Mr. Fanone’s animosity toward the former president could have been due to his partisan preferences as he grew up in DC.
Fanone speaks with a hillbilly accent but he grew up in DC, attended private schools, and is the son of a prominent DC attorney tied to Democrats
It's the same firm now representing more than a dozen major news corps filing motions in court to unseal…https://t.co/QlqGLAmAf8— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) July 31, 2022
He was also a Capitol Hill policeman on January 6th. The journalist Julie Kelly has a variety of unflattering portrayals of Fanone. She observed a history of racialized police misconduct by Fanone along with documented lies by the man over what occurred on January 6th.