WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon everyone charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a last-minute decision as the inauguration approached — and one that he surprised some of his supporters and supporters.
“He is who he is,” a person who worked on Trump’s transition team told NBC News. “Expectations are sometimes set as best as can be expected, and sometimes they change rapidly.”
Two officials working on Trump’s transition said the mass pardon was decided days before the inauguration. He, like others interviewed for this article, was granted anonymity to share details of private conversations.
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While Trump has long promised to pardon many convicted of non-violent crimes on Jan. 6, he has been less clear about how he would handle those convicted of violent crimes. , including 169 people who pleaded guilty. Attack on police officers.
Trump decided to go as far as he could, issuing nearly 1,500 pardons and commuting sentences for 14 others.
The pardon largely surprised many because Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance had recently indicated they would pursue a more surgical approach.
“I don’t know what the staffing was like on this,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., a Trump ally who attended Monday’s inauguration, said in an interview.
Drawing a line that denies pardoning people who attack police is “a more defensive position and easier to support,” Gingrich added. “You have to think if you really want to put people back on the street who haven’t paid their dues to do this.”
The White House did not return requests for comment.
Trump defended his decision during a press conference Tuesday evening. Asked by NBC News about pardoning a man who put a stun gun in the neck of a police officer during an attack, Trump was initially unsure whether he had pardoned or commuted his sentence. has given
When told it was a pardon, the president responded, “We’ll look into everything. But I can say today that murderers don’t get charged. You have murders that go uncharged.” would be applied
“These people have already spent many years in jail and have served them,” he added. “It’s a disgusting prison. It’s been horrible. It’s been inhumane. It’s been a horrible, horrible thing.”
Trump last year promised a central campaign to free Jan. 6 participants, referring to the prisoners as “hostages” and playing a song at his rallies that was sung by the inmates by the J6 Choir. Presented by name. But Trump and his campaign team also promised at times how they determine who would be eligible for clemency, indicating that torture could be a deal-breaker.
“I’m going to do it case by case, and if they were non-violent, I think they’ve been punished a lot,” he said. Trump told “Time” magazine in December. “And the answer is that I would, yes, I was going to see if there were some that were really out of control.”
In a Jan. 12 interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Vance was more direct, saying, “If you committed violence that day, obviously you shouldn’t be forgiven.”
On Tuesday, Vance’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, said that on a case-by-case basis that Trump and Vance had discussed “it meant that there was always a fall in how the pardons were implemented.” The area has a large limit”.
“Due to the corrupt practices of these prosecutors, President Trump decided on January 6 to grant a broad pardon to all wrongfully convicted protesters,” Van Kirk wrote to NBC News.
Referring to former President Joe Biden’s last-minute pardon before leaving office on Monday, Van Kirk added that “the impeachment administration’s request for a presidential pardon for members of the Biden family is subject to additional media scrutiny.” More deserving.”
A Republican close to the Trump administration who has spoken to Vance about the matter pointed to the vice president’s long public stance in support of the Jan. 6 defendants, noting that he is a 2022 Senate candidate. Helped raise money for them and their families.
“His support for these people goes back at least two and a half years,” the person said. “I don’t think anything has changed. He’s been very clear that there’s a gray area, but he’s also been pushing for massive changes from the beginning.”
Once Trump’s decision to “lenient,” a transition official told NBC News, the entire fledgling administration, including Vance, quickly got on the same page. Behind the scenes, Vance pushed for widespread forgiveness and change, said another person familiar with his role.
“Everyone is clear that we were looking at all the cases and that the final decision, which the vice president was the driving force behind, was a more comprehensive process,” another transition official wrote to NBC News. “The president aired leniency given how politicized and fractured the process was.”
Alex Brozewitz, a GOP political adviser with close ties to Trump’s world who was scheduled to testify before a House committee on Jan. 6, said there was no doubt that Trump had been in the early stages of his term. Will take great action.
“It was the right thing to do,” he said. “Some on the left may disagree, but the process was punishable.”
The move also had strong support from Trump’s MAGA political base, many of whom had come to Washington in the past few days for his inauguration.
Brett Thomas, 52, said he “brought tears to my eyes” when he attended Trump’s rally at Capital One Arena on Monday and heard the president say he would pardon the defendants on Jan. 6. have been”.
Thomas, president of Rhino Web Studios in New Orleans, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but did not go in because his wife called him and told him to go back to his hotel.
Although he supported Trump’s decision, he said he sees a difference between those who entered the Capitol and those who fought police that day. Still, he believes they were all punished enough.
“If there is evidence that you assaulted a police officer, there needs to be consequences,” Thomas said. “No, if they have been in jail for years, it is their result. And as far as I’m concerned, time flies.
Mike Davis, a Trump ally and legal adviser who has publicly lobbied the president for a pardon, said that for Trump, he felt some closeness to his supporters who were imprisoned on Jan. 6 because the government He was also prosecuted by .
“Trump is on the verge of ending Joe Biden’s politicized and weaponized Justice Department,” he said. “But Trump is a billionaire former and future president who had the resources to deal with this. These January 6 defendants do not.
Davis also said that Biden’s pardons on the way out of office — which included his family members and commuted the death sentences of 37 federal inmates to life in prison — gave Trump any political cover he needed. They may need to use the power of forgiveness. As he saw fit.
“Joe Biden pardoned his family,” Davis said. “He freed child rapists and murderers from the death penalty, and he pardoned a monster who killed two FBI agents. was murdered,” Davis said, referring to Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has long maintained his innocence and had his life sentence commuted. Of the Democrats Don’t want to see fake tears.”
“They can go to hell,” he added.
Trump’s decision is not without harsh criticism, however. Michael Fanon, a former police officer who was shot in the neck with a stun gun and was among those seriously injured during the Jan. 6 attacks, told NBC News that the apology was “outrageous” but that “someone It shouldn’t come as a surprise to Americans either.”
The rule of law is gone in this country. We are now in an era of government lawlessness,” Fanon said.
Fanon suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury as a result of the attack and was among the officers who testified before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack. Biden also issued preemptive pardons to committee members, including current and former members of Congress, out of fear that Trump would try to go after him when he returned to office.
Current and former prosecutors also sharply criticized Trump’s pardon, with one man who worked on the January 6 cases calling it “horrific.”
While some Republican lawmakers encouraged Trump’s actions, a large number of Republican senators were less enthusiastic, saying flatly they disagreed or refusing to embrace them.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, RN.C. said
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. — who was photographed punching Trump supporters before storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 — said he would not pardon those who have committed violent crimes but noted that Trump “has made his campaign We stick to our promises.”
