President Trump listed a “number of reasons” for pardoning violent Jan. 6 rioters throughout an interview aired Wednesday evening with Fox Information’s Sean Hannity.
“The only criticism or pushback I’ve seen is about people that were convicted or involved in incidents where they were violent with police. Why did they get a pardon?” Hannity requested Trump.
“Number of reasons,” Trump responded, “number one they were in there for three-and-a-half years, a long time, and in many, solitary confinement. Treated like nobody’s ever been … treated so badly.”
“They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote, because they knew the election was rigged, and they were protesting the vote, and that’s … should be allowed to protest the vote,” he added.
“But you shouldn’t be able to invade the capitol,” Hannity lower in.
“No, ready. Most of the people were absolutely innocent,” Trump stated. “OK, but forgetting all about that. These people have served horribly a long time. It would be very, very cumbersome to, look, you know how many people we’re talking about? 1,500 people, almost all of them…this should not have happened.”
“And the other thing is this. Some of those people with the police, true. But they were very minor incidents,” he added.
On Trump’s first day again in workplace, he issued a mass pardon of virtually all Jan. 6 defendants. About 1,500 “full, complete and unconditional pardons” got to rioters, Trump stated Monday evening.
“What they’ve done to these people is outrageous,” Trump stated whereas within the Oval Workplace.
The Jan. 6 pardons rattled Republican lawmakers who had front-row seats to the chaos on Capitol Hill 4 years in the past. Various GOP senators expressed unease concerning the breadth of the pardons.
“It is wrong to pardon individuals convicted of violent crime, especially when many of the victims of their violence were law enforcement officers,” stated Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.).
Nevertheless, the response was extra muted amongst Republicans within the Home, who largely defended the president and blamed President Biden for setting a precedent of abusing the presidential pardon energy.
Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) stated in a Tuesday put up on Threads that Republican members of the decrease chamber “are celebrating pardons issued to a bloodthirsty mob that violently assaulted police officers on January 6, 2021.”
