Former congressman and current “Fox News Primetime” host Trey Gowdy paid an emotional tribute to America’s law enforcement officers on Wednesday — the day Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

Gowdy, who was both a state and federal prosecutor in South Carolina prior to his stint in Congress, described the job of a police officer in typical Trey Gowdy style — frank and to the point — but atypical compared to his generally dry delivery.

“There are a lot of hard jobs in our country, but I can’t imagine anything harder than being a police officer. The hours are long, the pay is not good.

“The job is harder on your family. There are physical dangers, but there is also an emotional price to pay. When you spend most of your time investigating acts of depravity and evil, you get the proportions misaligned in your own mind.

“Sometimes when depravity is all you see, you think it is all that exists, “he said. “You see the crime scene photos you can’t get out of your mind. You see the acts of violence committed against children and other vulnerable people.”

But as we’ve seen so many times — 9/11 comes to mind — we see police officers run toward danger, not away from it, and more, as Gowdy said.

“You are expected to run toward danger when every instinct tells us to run away from danger. You are lied to, you are assaulted, and then everything you did or did not do is scrutinized.

“You make hard decisions, sometimes split-second decisions, and then the people judging those decisions can take weeks and months to decide whether or not you made the right call.”

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo tweeted a heartfelt thank-you to Gowdy for his tribute.

“On behalf of ⁦@MjrCitiesChiefs⁩ and the men and women we are privileged to lead and their families, thank you ⁦@TGowdySC for your emotional and heartfelt tribute.”

“We must lift up the good and hold accountable the bad, with equal vigor,” he said.

Thinking back over much of 2020, more than a few people, political parties, and news outlets fell “just a wee bit short” in that category — purposely so.

On behalf of ⁦@MjrCitiesChiefs⁩ and the men and women we are privileged to lead and their families, thank you ⁦@TGowdySC⁩ for your emotional and heartfelt tribute.

We must lift up the good and hold accountable the bad, with equal vigor.
https://t.co/GMYSrNpvT2

— Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) February 4, 2021

Gowdy grew more emotional as he spoke about a personal experience with a police officer in South Carolina who was involved in a case when Gowdy was a prosecutor.

“The cop in that case was outstanding. It was a tough, emotional case, but he was great. He was professional and he was compassionate. And I wanted to tell him what a great job he had done.

“But the verdict came back and the sentencing hearing was about to begin, and he he slipped out of the back of the courtroom. ‘It’s OK,’ I thought to myself, ‘I’ll see him again and I’ll make sure he knows what a great job he did.’

“He was young and he was talented and he had a bright future. So I knew that I would see him again.”

“But the next time I saw him,” Gowdy recounted, as he choked up, “he was lying on the side of a road, shot to death while serving a warrant. I waited too late.”

Throughout his tribute, which he delivered at the end of the show, Gowdy said several times that while we, as citizens, should have high expectations of our law enforcement officers, they, in turn, should be able to have high expectations of us — which he repeated as he closed the show.

“We should have high expectations of them, but they should have high expectations of us, too.

“And one of those expectations? Just to simply say thank you while they’re still able to hear us.

“So every law enforcement officer in the country, who can still hear us: Thank you for your service.”

Setting aside the case of Brian Sicknick and looking back over the last eight months, the despicable treatment of America’s law enforcement officers  — not only at the hands of Black Lives Matter Marxists and Antifa anarchists but even worse by the Democrat Party enablers and their leftist media cohorts — exactly make Trey Gowdy’s point.

After all, remember, they were simply “peaceful protesters” with “a cause.”