Today (Jan. 5), former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn announced his bid for Congress. The Democrat, who became an outspoken figure after defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack in 2021, is running in Maryland’s third Congressional District to fill the seat of outgoing Rep. John Sarbanes.

As part of his announcement, Dunn shared an Instagram video that loosely reenacted the insurrection, which a Congressional Committee stated was part of a plan by Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential victory. “On this day, my role was as a Capitol Police officer,” he said in the chaotic clip while describing himself as “a father, a Marylander [and] a Democrat” who “swore an oath to protect our Constitution” and “democracy.”

“It’s what allowed me to protect some members of Congress, who I knew were bigots, who helped fan the flames that started all of this. I put country above self,” Dunn added. “The problem is [that] a lot of them didn’t. Some of the same people who stood behind us when we protected them went back on the floor of Congress and stood behind Trump. They voted to acquit him. And worst of all, they denied the violence and trauma that led to the deaths of some of my fellow officers.”

Dunn also appeared on MSNBC to further explain his decision to become a candidate for public office. “One of the things that I’ve always said and tried to live by is, ‘Until there’s nothing that can be done, there’s always something that can be done,’ and I feel like I’ve run my race with the Capitol Police,” he explained. “I think [that], on Jan. 6, it exposed how weak and fragile that [our democracy] is. And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say — it may sound scary — but we are one election away from the extinction of democracy as we know it. Donald Trump said it himself that he is ready to be a dictator.”