Former President Donald Trump has said he will consider pardoning people convicted of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill if he runs for re-election in 2024 and wins, a statement that drew criticism from Republicans but also won applause from at least one party legislator.
At a rally in Texas on Saturday night, Trump said, “If I run and I win, we will treat these people from January 6 fairly.” He went on to say that “if pardons are needed, they are granted pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Trump was ousted last year on charges of inciting rebellion against Capitol Hill, but he wins the Senate, with 57 people voting for conviction and 43 for acquittal. Was missing a two-thirds majority necessary for his conviction, which would have allowed a further majority vote to simply ban him from running for another post in the future.
“Trump should not have guaranteed that”
Sen. Susan Collins (a Republican from Maine), one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump, told ABC News this week that she “does not think … that President Trump should have made that promise for pardon. We should let the legal process go ahead.”
Sen. Lindsay Graham (a South Carolina Republican), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Trump’s remarks are “out of place.”
“I do not want to reinforce the feeling that the desecration of the Capitol was okay,” he said on the “Meet the Nation” program on CBS. “I do not want to do anything that will increase the likelihood of this happening again in the future.”
New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sonuno told CNN “State of the Nation” that “the people who were part of the riots and the attack on Capitol Hill should be brought to justice. This is the rule of law.” Regarding the question of whether they should be pardoned, he replied: “For God’s sake, no.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged more than 725 people so far in the attack, in which Trump supporters came in large numbers in front of police officers and flooded Capitol Hill, the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Dozens of them received sentences, mostly for minor illegal entry Or illegal demonstration, and they were sentenced to short prison terms.Earlier this month, federal prosecutors filed indictments against 11 people on charges of incitement and conspiracy, offenses for which the maximum sentence could reach 20 years in prison.
Meanwhile, a special committee of the House of Representatives is investigating the causes and circumstances of the attack. Lawmakers at the panel said they wanted to understand “how the violent demonstration that day was matched with a public strategy and a public relations strategy designed to reverse the election result.” The chairman of the special committee, Member of the House of Representatives Benny Thompson (a Democrat from Mississippi), did not rule out the possibility of transferring the treatment of criminals to the Department of Justice.
Trump supporters described the hundreds of people accused of the Jan. 6 riots as political prisoners and victims of state coercion, rather than criminals.
Member of the House of Representatives Marjorie Green (a Republican from Georgia) wrote on Instagram that “I am glad to hear that President Trump says he will treat the defendants from January 6 fairly and grant them a pardon if necessary.”
She wrote that “America must have a fair legal system and we must defend the proper procedure.”