Friday, 27 December 2024

President Trump Says He Will Act On “First Day” To Pardon J6 Defendants

100 Percent Fed Up
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In a sit-down interview with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” President Trump said he would act on his “first day” in office to pardon J6 defendants.

“I’m going to be acting very quickly,” Trump said.

“Within your first 100 days, first day?” Welker asked.

“First day,” Trump said.

Per Reuters:

Trump told Welker that there could be “some exceptions” to his pardons if the individuals had acted “radical” or “crazy” during the assault, which left more than 140 police officers injured and led to several deaths.

But Trump described the prosecutions of his supporters as inherently corrupt and did not rule out pardoning the more than 900 defendants who had already pleaded guilty, including those accused of acting violently in the attack.

“I’m going to look at everything. We’re going to look at individual cases,” Trump said.

The comments – Trump’s most detailed on the issue of pardons since he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election – will likely add to already high expectations for broad action once Trump is sworn in to office on Jan. 20.

“He continues to put out the public message closer and closer to what the J6 community is asking for, which is clemency for all of the January 6ers,” Suzzanne Monk, a longtime advocate for defendants charged in the riot, told Reuters.

“Look. I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system. They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.’ And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed. For two years, they’ve been destroyed. But the system is a very nasty system,” Trump said.

“Listen, it’s a very tough system. Do you know, almost nobody– I saw people that didn’t even go into the building and they were convicted. And you had the police saying, ‘Come on in. Come on in.’ I mean, you know, the police are saying, ‘Come on in, everybody. Come on in.’ They had people — you know, you have a lot of cameras. They don’t want to release the tapes. They don’t want to release the tapes,” he added.

WATCH:

From The Guardian:

When Trump was asked about Capitol attackers who assaulted police officers he said that “they had no choice”. He also claimed individuals were pressured into accepting guilty pleas.

“Their whole lives have been destroyed,” said Trump, who criticized the outgoing president’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, on convictions of lying on gun ownership application forms as well as tax evasion. “They’ve been destroyed.”

Trump denied he would direct his second administration’s appointees to arrest elected officials involved in the investigation of the attack on the US Capitol, which led to federal criminal charges against him that have been dismissed. But he made it a point to tell Welker: “Honestly, they should go to jail.”

More than 1,250 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. And at least 645 people have been sentenced to serve some time in prison, ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Watch President Trump’s full interview with “Meet the Press”:


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