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 Trump

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.