Republicans Won't Denounce Trump's Pardons For Jan. 6 Rioters Who Beat Police Officers
WASHINGTON — They said over and over that violent Jan. 6 rioters shouldn’t get a reprieve, but now that President Donald Trump has pardoned nearly all defendants convicted of participating in the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Republicans were mostly OK with it.
“We’re looking at the future, not the past,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Monday after Trump issued sweeping pardons that included scores of people who assaulted police officers at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) deferred to Trump, saying that “it’s the president’s prerogative.”
And while Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) maintained that people who violate the law should be prosecuted, he demurred when asked by a reporter specifically about the Jan. 6 pardons.
“I haven’t gone into the detail,” Scott said.
Tuesday’s dodges by Republican senators marked the return of a frequent ritual from Trump’s first term: He would do or say something outrageous, and when reporters asked members of his party about it, they somehow hadn’t heard about it.
Only this time, some lawmakers are professing ignorance about the president pardoning more than 1,500 people who were charged with crimes specifically for attacking their own offices, causing them to literally run for their lives and hide in an undisclosed secure location.
“I want to review and see what he did,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Tuesday.
The order is not complicated, granting unconditional pardons to anyone “convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Some of those convicted of assaulting police officers celebrated their pardons online.
Hoeven and some other Republicans got hung up on the fact that 14 people received commutations rather than pardons. The main outcome is that anyone charged with any crime, no matter how violent, will soon be released from prison, if not formally forgiven by the government.
Other Republicans echoed Trump’s flat-out lies about the attack, namely that it had been a conspiracy orchestrated by his political opponents.
“I feel sorry for what happened to a lot of the Capitol police, but you could tell it was all a setup with what, 23 FBI agents involved in it,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told HuffPost.
Republicans have dubiously claimed since 2021 that they suspected some of the rioters were either liberal provocateurs, FBI agents or confidential human sources acting in a conspiracy with Trump’s political opponents to make the riot worse so that he and his supporters could be persecuted by Democrats.
There were, in fact, 23 FBI informants in Washington that day, but an agency watchdog said last month, in a report debunking the conspiracy theory once and for all, that investigators determined the informants weren’t authorized by the FBI to break the law or encourage others to do so. The informants had been previously tasked with providing information on some of the extremist groups that were involved in the riot. The FBI had not asked them to tag along to Washington.
Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno (R), another top Trump ally, said the Jan. 6 riot was a thing of the past and maintained he and Trump continued to be big supporters of law enforcement.
“Some of these people have been in jail for a long time. January 6 was a long time ago,” Moreno told reporters on Tuesday about people who participated in the attack on Congress.
“Nobody is a stronger supporter of law enforcement than President Trump, myself, or JD Vance,” he added, referring to the vice president. “We honor and respect law enforcement. When I walk in every morning, I look at the guards, I say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for helping out.’ But these people have been treated horribly.”
More than 600 defendants were charged with assaulting or obstructing police officers, dozens of whom suffered injuries. Five officers died after the fact, one from a stroke and four by suicide.
The sweeping pardons likely took Republicans by surprise. Both House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Vice President JD Vance said in TV interviews earlier this month that they did not expect the president to pardon violent rioters. “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” Vance said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) noted that Trump had merely followed on a campaign promise. “He said he was going to do this during the campaign, and he did exactly what he said,” Hawley told reporters.
However, a few Republican senators disagreed with Trump on the matter of pardons for violent Jan. 6 offenders.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) recalled seeing video of a police officer being physically crushed by a mob of Trump supporters during the riot. He told reporters that Trump’s pardons sent the wrong signal to people who want to assault law enforcement or elected officials.
“Those folks now think that it may be OK — I have a problem with that,” Tillis said. “That’s hard to really understand unless you’re somebody like me that’s had people invade my property. Two people [are] in prison right now because they communicated death threats against me. I will consistently force prosecution for anybody that does that.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) pointed to a Capitol police officer over her shoulder as she entered a Senate GOP lunch on Tuesday and said she was disappointed by the pardons.
“I do fear the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us,” Murkowski said.
And Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Semafor that “no one should excuse violence. And particularly violence against police officers.”
But the few voices of dissent were vastly outnumbered by GOP lawmakers who just wanted to move on and discuss other topics. Republicans are prioritizing confirming Trump’s Cabinet this week and making more progress on passing his legislative agenda, including another round of tax cuts.
Democrats, meanwhile, criticized the GOP for largely going mute as Trump pardons the people who committed an attack on Congress.
“These mass pardons are sickening — the ultimate disrespect for police officers who were assaulted brutally by criminal rioters, suffering lasting injuries and death in some cases,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a statement. “Shame on Republican colleagues who were protected that terrible day and now stay silent.”
