At a rally in Texas Saturday night, ex-president Donald Trump told the crowd that he would consider pardons for those convicted in his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The New York Times writes:
The promise to consider pardons is the furthest Mr. Trump has gone in expressing support for the Jan. 6 defendants.
“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” he said, addressing a crowd at a fairground in Conroe, Texas, outside Houston, that appeared to number in the tens of thousands. “We will treat them fairly,” he repeated. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”
New York Times
Trump also called for his supporters to stage protests in Atlanta and New York if prosecutors there indict him. An Atlanta district attorney is looking into Trump’s efforts to change the outcome of the Georgia vote in 2020 while prosecutors in New York are looking into fraudulent valuations of his real estate holdings.
“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or corrupt, we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had,” he said.
The Washington Post provides context:
Authorities have arrested and charged more than 700 people in connection with a sprawling investigation into the insurrection. Earlier this month, the Justice Department charged Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers group, and 10 other members or associates of the group with seditious conspiracy, the most serious charges levied as part of the department’s investigation.
Washington Post
