Keeping one of his major campaign promises, President Donald Trump pardoned some 1,500 Americans prosecuted for participating in the mostly peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In the proclamation granting pardons or commuting the sentences of those convicted after the protest, Trump said he is beginning a “national reconciliation.”
Trump also ordered the U.S. attorney general to dismiss pending cases.
The Proclamation
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation,” said Trump as he commuted the prison sentences to time served of those convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Those individuals are:
Stewart Rhodes
Kelly Meggs
Kenneth Harrelson
Thomas Caldwell
Jessica Watkins
Roberto Minuta
Edward Vallejo
David Moerschel
Joseph Hackett
Ethan Nordean
Joseph Biggs
Zachary Rehl
Dominic Pezzola
Jeremy Bertino
Trump pardoned “all other individuals” convicted of related crimes.
As well, the attorney general must issue certificates of pardon and ensure that those convicted be released from prison “immediately.” The attorney general must also “pursue dismissal with prejudice” of all indictments.
Trump ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to carry out the Justice Department’s directives.
More than 730 people were charged with misdemeanor offenses for activities during the protest, the Post Millennial reported, and about 300 are still in court, “including cases in which the defendant is charged with violent felony crimes.” The majority of prosecutions — 55 percent — are for misdemeanors such as trespassing or disorderly conduct, the website reported.
The Biden administration charged 1,580 protesters and secured 1,270 convictions.
Reaction
Democrat fury ensued after the pardons and commutations were announced.
Referring to Trump’s inaugural speech, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said “Trump is ushering in a Golden Age for people that break the law and attempt to overthrow the government.”
Also enraged is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who discussed a possible coup against Trump with then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley.
“The President’s actions are an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution,” Pelosi fumed:
It is shameful that the President has decided to make one of his top priorities the abandonment and betrayal of police officers who put their lives on the line to stop an attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. Despite the President’s decision, we must always remember the extraordinary courage and valor of the law enforcement heroes who stood in the breach and ensured that democracy survived on that dark day.
Schumer and Pelosi were much less concerned about President Joe Biden’s preemptively pardoning these individuals:
• Anthony Fauci, who lied to a Senate committee about his department’s funding illegal gain-of-function research in a Chinese lab that almost certainly led to the release of the Covid-19 virus;
• Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, who, in the waning days of Trump’s presidency, contacted his counterpart in China, General Li Zuocheng, and told him that if the United States were about to attack China, he, Milley, would let Zuocheng know ahead of time. Milley also discussed disobeying Trump’s orders for an attack with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
• Former GOP Representative Liz Cheney, who tampered with and suborned perjury from a witness before the select January 6 committee; and, finally, his entire family for putative crimes going back to 2014.
Neither did the two far-left Democrats think Biden betrayed and abandoned the two FBI agents when he commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier and ordered him to home confinement. In 1975, Peltier murdered the agents with point-blank shots to the head.
As for Biden’s pardoning family members, Schumer apparently doesn’t much care.
Double Standard
But four years ago, he viewed preemptive family pardons much differently, as the Daily Wire reported.
Trump is “reportedly asking his staff whether he can issue preemptive pardons for himself, his family members, Rudy Giuliani,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “There’s a simple answer: No. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority.”
“But I have a more important question: Just how long are our Republican colleagues going to indulge the president in this nonsense?” Schumer continued.
The website reported that Schumer had not answered an inquiry about his view of Biden’s preemptive pardons.
