The looming danger of Trump's January 6 pardons – Mother Jones

Trump supporters clash with police at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Illustration from Mother Jones; Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty

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Four years ago, after thousands of people were incited by losing presidential candidate Donald Trump to storm the U.S. Capitol and attempt to stop Joe Biden from taking office, the FBI launched the one of the largest criminal investigations ever carried out. These efforts continue but could soon be largely reversed by Trump, using the pardon powers of the presidency. National security and law enforcement sources say this could have dangerous consequences.

Based on prolific video footage, digital communications, and other evidence from January 6, 2021, nearly 1,600 people have been charged with federal crimes. More than 1,250 people have pleaded guilty or been found guilty at trial, about a third of whom have been prosecuted for violence or rioting. According to the Justice Department, nearly 600 people have been charged with assaulting or obstructing law enforcement, which continues to result in convictions and guilty pleas. The DOJ successfully prosecuted 14 people for seditious conspiracy by the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, pro-Trump extremist groups whose members extensively planned violence on January 6. Oath Keepers from several states brought an arsenal of weapons and ammunition.

Trump claimed throughout his 2024 campaign that he would grant a full pardon to those convicted on January 6. Despite multiple deaths and widespread injuries and property damage at the Capitol, Trump has since brazenly attempted to rewrite history, declaring January 6 a gun-free love holiday and describing the perpetrators as patriots and persecuted hostages .

They will have a story of martyrdom, and that is a very good way to rebuild right-wing terrorist organizations. »

In early December, on NBC's Meet the Press, Trump confirmed that he would most likely implement the pardons when he returns to office. He mentioned the possibility of making exceptions for anti-tariff people who relate to anti-fascist ideology which the FBI says played no role in the attack and brought up other debunked conspiracy theories. In an interview with Time published on December 12, he appeared to narrow the scope to non-violent convicts, but he maintained that violent offenders could also be exonerated on a case-by-case basis and reiterated that a large majority of the Jan. 6 convicts should be pardoned. a process he pledged to begin in his first hour as president.

Legally exonerating criminal Trump supporters who tried to subvert the election system could have grim consequences, according to national security and law enforcement sources I spoke with.

Violent far-right groups that supported Trump will be emboldened, says Juliette Kayyem, a former senior DHS official in the Obama administration who directs the Homeland Security Project at Harvards Kennedy School of Government. They will have a story of martyrdom, and that's a very good way to rebuild right-wing terrorist organizations, she said. They will see it as a victory and it will help them recruit people and raise funds. (Notably, as Trump and his allies campaigned nonstop throughout the fall on false claims of impending voter fraud, members of the Proud Boys were once again preparing for possible violence in support of Trump, reported the Wall Street Journal.)

The impending January 6 pardons are part of a broader picture that includes loyalty tests for Trump's new administration and talk of retaliation against his political enemies, as he seeks to install highly defiant loyalists in office. head of the FBI and the Department of Justice. These and other measures build on Trump's perpetual denial that he lost the 2020 election and serve to distract from the vast body of evidence that led DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith , to accuse Trump himself of serious crimes related to the 2020 election and the national security of the United States.

“He wants to erase his election defeat and what really happened on January 6,” Kayyem says, warning that Trump could also pave the way for an increase in white supremacist violence, as was the case during his first term . What concerns me is not only the encouragement from the Trump White House that says, Yes, this kind of behavior is acceptable, but also the lack of prosecution for this kind of behavior in the future.

Grievance politics and a heightened threat environment could also come at a cost to federal law enforcement and those they protect at the Capitol. U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger told a Senate committee in mid-December that members of Congress continue to face record levels of threats. This year again, we are on track to receive approximately 8,000 to 9,000 threat assessment cases, Manger testified, detailing an “overwhelming” amount of work for the officers involved: “They carry an annual workload average of nearly 500 cases. »

According to a source close to Capitol Police operations, an era of politicization of security on both sides of the aisle has been demoralizing within the ranks, but especially in the way Trump's allies on Capitol Hill have helped him to making the truth a victim of January 6th. you protect those who downplay or outright lie about the event itself, the source told me, a posture that is all the more infuriating given limited resources: so some of these same people will be outraged if they do not receive the security they want.

Even as U.S. politics evolves after Trump's 2024 victory, law enforcement officers who lived through Jan. 6 are still suffering psychological and physical injuries, the source added. This includes debilitating cases of PTSD, permanent disfigurement from chemical sprays used by rioters, and other lasting trauma. At least four officers who responded to the Jan. 6 attack later committed suicide.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official told me that Republican lawmakers had made comments privately rejecting Trump's false Jan. 6 narrative, but would not do so publicly.

Photos of more than 90 suspected rioters sought by the FBI remain posted on the bureau's page on violence at the Capitol. And dozens of criminal investigations into January 6 remain open, notably for violence against the police, confirmed a senior American law enforcement official who is familiar with these cases.

This longtime Washington-based law enforcement official told me that several Republican lawmakers have made comments privately in recent months rejecting Trump's false narrative about Jan. 6, but would not do so publicly . One deputy, a law enforcement official, told me, admitted it was out of fear of political retaliation as well as for his family's safety. Trump's critics within his own party have often been targeted by Trump and therefore face violent threats.

It is unclear to what extent investigations underway on Jan. 6 will be scaled back or halted when Trump takes control of the Justice Department and appoints a new FBI director to replace Christopher Wray, who announced this month that he would resign at the end of Biden's term. . Trump has been seething against Wray since the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 to retrieve highly classified documents that the former president refused to return to the federal government. Smith then charged Trump with several crimes, including obstruction and violating the Espionage Act.

Trump's response has consistently been to declare the leadership of the FBI and Justice Department corrupt and out to stop him, with baseless claims he is now using to demolish the 10-year tenure of the directors of the FBI established by Congress after Watergate to guard against partisan abuse of power. vast repressive powers. Trump's choice to replace FBI Director Kash Patel made clear that such partisan abuses would be central to his mission.

Trump also reinforced his false narrative about the 2020 election and its aftermath by continuing to threaten members of the bipartisan House Select Committee that investigated January 6. He reiterated on Meet the Press that Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming should be prosecuted. “Honestly, for what they did, they should go to jail,” Trump said. (On Tuesday, House Republicans released an investigative report clearly aimed at supporting Trump's narrative; thin on evidence and heavy on innuendo, the report targets Cheney and Thompson, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a key select committee witness on January 6 Cassidy Hutchinson.)

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., responded that Trump's attacks on the bipartisan committee's work were unconstitutional, dangerous and should be laughed at by any legitimate lawyer. She said in her statement that the committee “followed the facts and provided the truth to the American people and, while this may be an inconvenient truth for Donald Trump, it is an honest depiction of what happened.” He's lying when he says otherwise.

Lofgren further noted that the American public can view the committee's full report and investigative evidence as well as Justice Department records on the multitude of crimes committed by Trump supporters at the Capitol on January 6.

However, with Trump returning to office, many of these offenders will likely be absolved, and the public's memory of how Trump motivated them to do what they did may begin to fade.

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