In the waning days of his presidency, Donald Trump considered issuing blanket pardons to January 6th rioters, according to POLITICO.
The outlet reports:
Between Jan. 6 and Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump made three calls to one adviser to discuss the idea. “Do you think I should pardon them? Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you think I have the power to do it?” Trump told the person, who summarized their conversations.
Another adviser to the former president said Trump asked questions about how participants in the riot might be charged criminally, and how a uniform pardon could provide them protection going forward.
“Is it everybody that had a Trump sign or everybody who walked into the Capitol” who could be pardoned? Trump asked, according to that adviser. “He said, ‘Some people think I should pardon them.’ He thought if he could do it, these people would never have to testify or be deposed.”
Trump was ultimately talked out of the idea, which was both practically and legally dubious. POLITICO notes that White House counsel Pat Cipollone was frequently at loggerheads with Trump at the time, and issuing pardons to the rioters might have triggered his resignation.
Over a 140 police officers were injured when a a mob of Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Trump has frequently defended their actions.
Trump also broached the topic of pardons for the rioters at a Texas rally on Saturday.
“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” he told a crowd assembled outside Houston. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Those comments led to a rare rebuke from Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Republican told CBS that Trump’s promise of pardons was “inappropriate.”
Graham added that he hopes the Capitol rioters “go to jail and get the book thrown at them, because they deserve it.”
“I would absolutely be prepared, and Lindsey Graham doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about if he says that, because you have to have equal justice,” Trump responded during a Newsmax appearance. “It’s very, very unfair what’s happened to this group of people.”
Appearing on CNN, Rep. Pete Aguilar, a Democrat on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack, said the promise of pardons may be tantamount to witness tampering.
Aguilar added, “I think the question is more for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Where are they? Do they support this? When is enough enough?”
