House Democratic leaders are bashing President Trump and his allies in the Capitol for supporting blanket clemency for those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Democrats say Republicans are hypocrites for claiming to support law enforcement while simultaneously backing Trump’s decision to pardon more than 1,500 people who were prosecuted for the rampage, including those who attacked police officers protecting the Capitol complex.
“House Republicans are celebrating pardons issued to a bloodthirsty mob that violently assaulted police officers on January 6, 2021. What happened to backing the Blue?” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) posted Tuesday on Threads.
“Far right extremists have become the party of lawlessness and disorder,” he continued. “Don’t ever lecture America again.
“About anything.”
Trump’s approach to the Jan. 6 rampage has evolved dramatically in the years since it happened. One day after the riot, the president said he was “outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem,” and endorsed stiff punishments for those who participated.
“To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country,” he said in a speech to the country. “And to those who broke the law, you will pay.”
Since then, however, Trump has sought to rewrite the history of Jan. 6, recasting the rioters as patriots and reframing the rampage as “a day of love.”
As part of that revisionist history, Trump vowed on the campaign trail to pardon those who were arrested at the Capitol during the insurrection. And on Monday evening, just hours after being sworn in for his second term, the president made good on the promise, issuing pardons for roughly 1,500 people.
“They’ve already been in jail for a long time,” he said. “These people have been destroyed.”
He also commuted the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two right-wing nationalist groups that have promoted violence to achieve their goals.
The blanket nature of the pardons came as a surprise. Just a week ago, JD Vance, who was sworn in Monday as Trump’s vice president, had promoted the idea of clemency for those who “protested peacefully” on Jan. 6, but added that “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
Trump’s decision to deviate from that formula and provide reprieve for even the most violent Jan. 6 protesters has put congressional Republicans in an uncomfortable spot. They have promoted themselves as the party of law and order, but they also don’t want to criticize their White House ally in the first days of his new term.
Many Republicans are approaching that dilemma by deflection, pointing to former President Biden’s decision to grant pardons to his son, who was facing several felony charges, and other figures he said would be targeted unfairly by Trump’s Justice Department. That list included additional Biden family members; Anthony Fauci, a top health official during the Covid pandemic; and the House lawmakers who investigated Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
“We said all along that Biden opened the door on this,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Tuesday.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), who was one of the members of the Jan. 6 select committee, dismissed that argument, saying Republicans are reaching for rationales to defend the indefensible.
“There’s no basis for that [comparison]. Joe Biden didn’t provide pardons to hardened criminals who were convicted by a jury or a judge for beating law-enforcement officers,” said Aguilar, now chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
“It’s a false equivalency that is only possible on the side of Republicans.”
Still, Aguilar made clear that he did not want the pardon Biden had provided, arguing that the panel’s investigation was air-tight and didn’t require additional protections from legal scrutiny.
“It’s not something I asked for, or sought, or wanted,” Aguilar said. “We did our job. We upheld, and stayed true to, our oath to the Constitution to carry out the work and to find out what happened on that day. And I’m proud of the work that we did, and proud of the members and staff who we worked with.
“But I understand why the president did it.”
