President Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,500 people accused of the January 6 attack.
On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,500 people accused of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Reuters
Washington – Robert Keith Packer chose to wear a black hoodie with a design of a large white Nazi SS skull – and the words “Camp Auschwitz” written across it – when he joined the attack. January 6, 2001 at the US Capitol.
Beneath it were the words “WORK BRINGS FREEDOM” – the English translation of the slogan The front doors of Auschwitz And other Nazi death camps, “Arbeit macht frei.”
On Monday night, in his first official act as president, Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people for criminal acts in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, including Packer, 59, and some other prominent Nazi sympathizers.
Hatchet Speed, a Naval Reserve officer and supporter The Proud Boys is a right-wing extremist group At that time, I was also sentenced to four years for his role. Attack on the Capitol Deleted he told an undercover FBI agent. About Adolf Hitler’s Appreciation and discussed planning. ‘Elimination’ of American Jews.
Trump also pardoned Army reservists. Timothy Louis Hale-Casanelliwho was sentenced to 48 months in prison for actions related to violating the capitol, including shouting to “advance” the crowd during the riot before going inside.
Federal prosecutors made the statement. Hail Kasaneli As one White supremacists and Nazi sympathizersHe is pictured playing. Hitler-style mustache. which he allegedly wore to work as A contractor at a US Navy base.
According to the Washington Post, 34 of Hale-Cusanelli’s colleagues told Navy investigators that he “Extremist or Radical Ideas Regarding Jews, minorities and women. One officer stated that Hale-Cusanelli “should have finished Hitler” in killing six million Jews during the Holocaust from 1933 to 1945.
Trump on Monday did not specify why he granted a “full, complete and unconditional” pardon or pardon to each of the 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters, including many who attacked police officers. Violent attack with spray and weapons. Describing them as “patriots” and “hostages,” he said their prosecution and imprisonment was “a grave national injustice committed against the American people.”
A spokesman for Trump did not return a request for comment.
Packer wore a hoodie ‘because I was cold’
Packer and his Auschwitz hoodie went viral on social media during the January 6 riots and in the months and years that followed.
There was Auschwitz. The largest of the German Nazi concentrations Camps and “extermination centers” during World War II, according to a museum at the former facility. More than 1.1 million men, women, and children were either killed or died of disease or injury in the camps in occupied Poland.
Sporting a long beard and hair, Packer can be seen in a cell phone photo as others gather behind him on the steps of the Capitol. The Newport News, Va., resident traveled to the Capitol with his sister, he told the court during his sentencing.
Little is known about Packer’s background, or his political beliefs.
When FBI agents asked him why he was wearing a hoodie, He allegedly replied“because I was cool,” a federal prosecutor said in an NPR report filed in court.
Packer was one of the first people indicted by the Justice Department on Jan. 6 for his role. He was arrested eight days later, on January 13. Allegation of willful and deliberate involvement and encouraging mobs that forced their way into the Capitol and disrupted, disrupted, and disrupted the orderly conduct of business by Congress as it confirmed Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Trump. tried
He was. Sentenced in September 2022. Imprisonment up to 75 days. Prosecution Asked for three years Probation
An ‘incredibly offensive’ message
Packer, then 57, refused to address U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols before his sentencing via video conference. But the judge noted an “incredibly offensive” message on Packer’s sweatshirt before handing down the sentence.
“I feel like he was wearing that sweatshirt for a reason. We don’t know what the reason was because Mr. Packer didn’t tell us,” Nichols said. According to media reports.
Prosecutors later determined that Packer’s hoodie had the word “STAFF” emblazoned on the back — and that he wore an “SS” or “Schutzstaffel” shirt underneath — of Hitler’s founding Nazi party, according to court testimony. A reference to a paramilitary organization.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Furst told the judge, NPR said Packer “wanted to support the subversion of our republic and to establish an authoritarian regime through force and violence.”
“She posted her faith on her dress that day,” Frost also said. According to NBC News.
Defense attorney Stephen Brenwald acknowledged that Packer’s outfit was “seriously offensive” and “just plain scary” but argued that her right to free speech to wear it should not be a factor in her conviction.
