Violent prisoners pardoned by Trump on January 6 are returning to a country threatened by political violence. He loves it.
Trump supporters storm the Capitol in an attempt to stop the 2020 presidential election results from being certified on January 6, 2021.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Convicted felon Donald Trump, aka our 47th president, has unleashed such tyranny, cruelty, and idiocy on his first day in office that I can’t tell you which of his moves is “worst.” (Read my friend and colleague Eli Mistall his failure to impeach Trump 14th Amendment birthright citizenship.)
Trump’s swift move to pardon or commute the sentences of roughly 1,600 inmates on Jan. 6 should be over the top. It was as if he had just released his own paramilitary force. Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tario, convicted of sedition and sentenced to 18 and 22 years in prison respectively, walked free on Tuesday. They and others who helped plan the violent uprising are now back on the streets.
One proud boy told Reuters it would be a boon for recruitment. “Many people stayed away from us after the arrests,” he said. “Now they’re going to feel bulletproof.”
Oh yeah, and Trump pardoned Robert Keith Packer, who was wearing the famous outfit that “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt. (Happy Jared?)
If I were being charitable, I might say that this is one of the rare examples of Trump’s loyalty to others. Just as Chief Justice John Roberts made sure Trump didn’t have to pay for inciting the Jan. 6 riots, so Trump granted his own special form of “immunity” to his supporters who were charged that bloody day. He continued to call them “hostages”.
They “have already served years in prison, and they served them harshly,” Trump said at a press conference Tuesday night. “This is a disgusting prison. It was terrible. It is inhumane. It was horrible, horrible.”
For those of us who had high hopes that Trump would serve years in prison — a humane prison because we don’t share right-wing values — these pardons are a terrible, terrible thing.
Just safety broke who exactly Trump pardoned. While GOP leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, previously said they expected him to pardon nonviolent protesters and opposed any other moves, he has actually pardoned more than 600 people convicted of assaulting or obstructing officers. law enforcement agencies. Nearly 200 have pleaded guilty to assaulting them. (Trump also pardoned 300 defendants who have not yet been tried.)
Here are just a few who have been pardoned thanks to Just Security:
At least three defendants pleaded guilty on January 6 to the assault of Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officer Michael Fanon, who according to reports “suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury during the attack” and was forced to resign from the police force. Daniel Rodriguez pleaded guilty February 14, 2023 to Fanon’s tasting, as well as other accusations. Another defendant, Kyle Young, pleaded guilty On May 5, 2022, in an attack on Fanon when he “held the officer’s left wrist” and “pulled” Fanon’s “arm away from his body.” During the attack on the officers in the Capitol Tunnel, Young too “pointed a strobe light at the police line and pushed a stick-like object forward.” A third man, the head of Albuquerque, pleaded guilty to dragging Fanon into the crowd of rioters, shouting “I’ve got one!” Rodriguez was after awarded to more than 12 years in prison, and Young got more than seven years and the manager was awarded up to 7.5 years of imprisonment.
Back blue, indeed.
At least one of the people pardoned by Trump seems to agree. Pamela Hemphill, the so-called “Grandma of MAGA,” who served time in prison for her involvement in the Capitol riots, said about his pardon“I pleaded guilty because I was guilty and accepting a pardon would also contribute to their fraud and false narrative. We made a mistake that day, we broke the law – there should be no pardons.”
The Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police also criticized the pardons and commutations not only of those imprisoned on January 6, but also of those whose sentences President Joe Biden was commutingsaying they were “deeply disappointed” by the actions of both presidents. “The IACP and FOP strongly believe that those convicted of (murdering or assaulting law enforcement officers) should serve their full sentence,” the groups said in joint statement.
Perhaps the most poignant testimony Tuesday came from exes Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilina Gunnellwho shared messages warning him when every convicted felon he testified against would be released.
“Every email and call log is a different rioter attacking me in the tunnel. If you are defending these people who brutally attacked the police, then maybe you are NOT a supporter of the police and the rule of law. If you did, you would want to be prosecuted.”
incl Patriots. Victorya Trump-supporting website, at least two dozen people hoped to execute Democrats, judges or law enforcement officials involved in the Jan. 6 cases, Reuters reported. “They called for lawyers and policemen to be hanged, beaten to death, chopped up in wood chippers or thrown out of helicopters.
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“Get the entire federal judiciary into a stadium. Then let them listen and watch as judges are beaten to death,” wrote one. “Cut off their heads and put them on pikes in the street” Ministry of Justice.
Jacob Chensley, known as the Q-Anon shaman, has already served his three years in prison. But he is celebrated his pardon thus: “NOW I’LL BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!!”
Remembering that his mom demanded that Chanceley be served organic food in prison, I find it hard to believe that he would become a cold-blooded killer. But this is probably just my lack of imagination.
I don’t know how we’re going to turn Trump’s law enforcement supporters against him with this horrible news. I just know we have to try.
In the run-up to the inauguration, I took a few days off to prepare for the political, legal, and moral apocalypse that was unfolding. Like many of us, I’ve been feeling burned out—not just by the election season, but by our 10 years of Trump. And if you, like me, covered his racist nonsense about President Barack Obama, that sets you back at least four more years of cruelty and insanity. I finished working on Inauguration Day, writing my memory of Cecil Richardsbut it was a labor of love.
I think my vacation helped when I came home two days later to this nightmare to see things more clearly. These apologies are mean. And a lot of people won’t know about it if we don’t talk about it, all of it, a lot.
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