Their vice president JD Vance said thatObviously“It won’t do.
His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, agreed There was no way: “The president doesn’t like people who abuse police officers,” he told senators last week.
The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, A similar assurance was given That President Trump won’t pardon “violent criminals” — the kind who beat police officers with broken pieces of furniture or used a weapons cache in Virginia if they violate the capitol Jan 6, 2021 failed.
Even public opinion was against Mr. Trump. Only 34 percent of Americans thought he should pardon the January 6 rioters. Monmouth University Pool In December
But on Monday, the first day of Trump’s second presidency, he threw caution to the wind and did exactly what he wanted: He ordered that every rioter get some form of reprieve. It doesn’t matter what crimes they have committed. Whether they are guilty of violent acts or plotting rebellion, they will all eventually be cleared. Hundreds of criminals got full amnesty. The sentences of 14 members of far-right groups accused of sedition were overturned. And their charges will eventually be dismissed, along with all ongoing cases.
Mr. Trump’s decision to intervene in even the most violent cases sends a clear message about his plans for his next four years in power: He intends to test its outer limits — more than in his first term. There is something they can avoid. .
“These people are devastated,” Mr. Trump said of the Jan. 6 rioters, sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office for the first time as the 47th president, after issuing pardons. What they have done to these people is outrageous.
Mr. Trump’s advisers and lawyers had spent months debating how far he should go in granting pardons to people tried in connection with the capital riots. White House counsel David Warrington presented Mr. Trump with options, some more extensive than others, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal discussions. .
Mr. Trump and his advisers said during the campaign that they would approach pardons on a case-by-case basis. It was an unequivocal recognition that there were dangerous criminals within the group, but the vagueness was also Mr Trump’s way of keeping his options open.
He was making up his mind over the weekend and into Monday, according to advisers. But by Sunday afternoon, people close to him were under the impression that he was likely to go into remission. Anything less would have been an admission that there was something wrong with what his supporters did on January 6, or that the reversal of the 2020 election was somehow unjustified, or that Mr. The defender of the theory made a mistake. .
President Biden’s preemptive pardon for those who investigated Mr. Trump’s role in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack is the broadest possible, according to two people with knowledge of his decision-making. Their willingness to take a stand increased. .
Sitting in the Capitol Rotunda awaiting Mr. Trump’s swearing-in on Monday, a senior member of Mr. Trump’s team told others, referring to Mr. Biden’s apology, “We can do it all now.”
The way Mr. Trump sees it, he not only defeated the Democrats in the 2024 election campaign. He also defeated the remnants of the Republican opposition, the mainstream media and the justice system, which he saw as forces weaponized against him. He has occasionally claimed that the only revenge he wants in office is “success” for the country. But from what he said and did in his first 24 hours on the job, it’s clear he wants to be paid, too.
The apologies were among several actions on Day 1 — some public, some less so — that revealed his plans to equalize.
Mr. Trump revoked Secret Service protection for his former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, who had fallen out with him. The agents had protected Mr Bolton since 2021, when US authorities learned of an alleged Iranian plot to kill him. A man was criminally charged with targeting her in 2022.
Mr Trump also revoked the security clearances of Mr Bolton and 49 former intelligence officials who signed a letter before the 2020 election that claimed a laptop belonging to Mr Biden’s son Hunter contained Russian disinformation. is part of the operation.
Another executive order from Mr. Trump, lost in the blur of Inauguration Day activity, suggests a broader scope for retaliation.
Titled “Ending the Arms of the Federal Government,” the order contains a preamble that emphasizes the fact that the Biden administration has limited its prosecutorial powers in pursuing criminal investigations of Mr. Trump and his allies. made The order directs federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the intelligence community, to dig deeper to uncover alleged weapons and then send reports of misconduct to the White House. The order sets out what will be, at a minimum, a naming and shaming exercise.
More likely it will provide a road map for prosecution.
The White House did not respond to an email seeking comment.
‘He got the power, and now he’s going to use it’
Mike Davis, a Republican lawyer and supporter of Mr. Trump who advocated for a pardon in connection with the Jan. 6 riots, said the president has learned a lot about executive power over the past eight years. He said Mr. Trump would not be deterred by what he sees as political reasons.
“This election was a referendum on Trump, MAGA and the law, and the American people made their decision on Nov. 5,” Mr. Davis said. “He won power, and now he’s going to use it like the Democrats.”
Mr. Davis was unfazed by any backlash to the apology. “He understands how to govern,” she said, “he knows that public opinion can be swayed.”
The Jan. 6 pardon ended a four-year campaign to rewrite the history of the riots as a day in which Mr. Trump and his supporters were the righteous victims and those investigating their actions were the villains.
That wasn’t always Mr. Trump’s view — or at least not his publicly stated view. The day after the attack, he recorded a video in which he described the attack on the Capitol as “heinous,” adding, “Those who broke the law, you will be paid.” This was the second video he released after the riots. His crew thought his first video was too sympathetic to the rioters and persuaded him to do another taping.
In the final days of his first term, Mr. Trump privately discussed the possibility of pardoning those involved in the riots. He abandoned the idea, but within months of leaving office, Mr. Trump began referring to Jan. 6 as Patriot Day, the “Day of Love.”
He integrated the “J6 community” into his campaign as patriotic martyrs or, as he termed them, “hostages”. Mr. Trump played a version of the “Star Spangled Banner” recorded by a choir of incarcerated defendants on Jan. 6 at his rallies. His nominee for FBI director was Kash Patel. The idea of turning it into a songdubbed with a recitation of Mr. Trump’s Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Trump is still playing the recording on his patio at Mar-a-Lago, as guests stand and sing, hands over hearts.
Daniel Hodges, one of the officers who was injured when he stormed the Capitol gates on Jan. 6, said Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 whitewashing was an attempt to maintain his supporters’ faith in his own goodness and patriotism. It was necessary.
“He kind of had to lean into it and say it was the patriots rebelling,” Officer Hodges said. If Mr. Trump doesn’t elevate the rioters, “he’s going to have to come to terms with the fact that he led an attack against the United States of America — and that goes against his self-image.”
The speed with which the massive investigation on January 6 unfolded surprised even those who had been mentally preparing for it. Within an evening, not only had nearly 1,600 people been pardoned, but defendants were walking out of prison—among them Enrique Tarrio and Joseph Biggs, two leaders of the Proud Boys, serving long sentences for plotting the coup. had been
Ed Martin, Mr. Trump’s new interim U.S. attorney in Washington, was already moving to dismiss riot cases — including that of a former FBI agent accused of confronting officers in the Capitol. Including calling them Nazis and encouraging them to kill a crowd of Trump supporters. . Mr. Martin Sits on the board On January 6, one of the most prominent legal fund-raising groups to support the defendants.
Mr. Trump has always favored a maximalist approach to everything he does, but he sometimes gets short shrift when external obstacles seem insurmountable. It’s unclear how much Washington has left to stop it.
He has more potential than he wanted four years ago. They know more about the limits of their presidential powers and are more willing to test them in court. His order to end birthright citizenship was something he had pushed his administration to do in his first term until the 2020 election, but his White House lawyers and his Attorney General, William P. Barr, told him not to. That they do not have the power to cancel. A right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
He now has a more favorable judiciary, which he changed in his first term, and he has more compliance in Congress than the Republican leadership. Few GOP lawmakers have been willing to say anything critical of Mr. Trump’s pardoning of rioters.
Mr. Trump’s team also has little control over their emotions. His second term in The West Wing includes none of the first-term assistants who tried to talk him out of his extreme views. In his place is a team of loyalists who may occasionally disagree on policy, but truly believe in his instincts, especially after his spectacular comeback.
His team has eliminated anyone it deems disloyal to Mr. Trump. Even people with no known history of opposing Mr. Trump have been blacklisted because of their associations with Republicans, now seen as disloyal. That group includes Republicans he hired in his first term, such as Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo.
Many of Trump’s aides have received indictments over the past four years, and some of his closest associates, including his aide Walt Nota, have been indicted. These investigations further radicalized many of his advisers against what he derisively referred to as the “deep state”. Many of them are now joining him in returning to government for that second shot at power. They don’t intend to waste it.
