His vice president, J.D. Vance, said it was “obvious” he would not do that.
His attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi, agreed: “The president doesn’t like people who abuse police officers,” she told senators last week.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has given similar assurances that President Trump will not pardon “violent criminals” who commit crimes by beating police officers with broken furniture or hiding an arsenal of weapons in Virginia so they can be used in violation of regulations molecular.
Even public opinion is against Trump. Only 34% of Americans think he should pardon the Jan. 6 rioters, according to a December Monmouth University poll.
But on Monday, the first day of Trump’s second term as president, he threw caution to the wind and did what he wanted: He decreed that every rioter would get some kind of reprieve. It doesn’t matter what crime they committed; whether they were convicted of acts of violence or seditious conspiracy, they were eventually cleared. Hundreds of criminals received blanket pardons; 14 members of far-right groups accused of sedition had their sentences reduced; and all others with ongoing cases will have their charges eventually dismissed.
Trump’s decision to intervene in the most violent cases sends a clear message to his plans for the next four years of power: He intends — even more so than in his first term — to test the outer limits of what he can get away with .
“These people have been wiped out,” Trump said of the Jan. 6 rioters as he sat behind a determined desk in the Oval Office for the first time as the 47th president. “What they did to these people was outrageous.”
Trump’s advisers and lawyers have spent months debating how much leniency he should grant to those charged in connection with the Capitol riot. White House counsel David Warrington presented Trump with a variety of options, some broader than others, according to two people briefed on the matter. discuss.
Trump and his advisers said during the campaign that he would handle pardons on a case-by-case basis. It was an unspoken admission that there were dangerous criminals within the organization, but the vagueness was also a way for Trump to keep his options open.
Over the weekend and into Monday, he was still making decisions, according to advisers. But by Sunday afternoon, people close to him had the impression that he might seek blanket clemency. To do nothing would be to admit that there was something wrong with what his supporters did on January 6, or that the reasons for overturning the 2020 election were somehow irrational, or that anyone who defends Mr. Trump’s worldview is guilty of error.
President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons of those investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack have only heightened his desire to pursue the broadest possible approach, two people familiar with his decision-making said. .
“We can do it all now,” a senior member of Trump’s team told others as he sat in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday waiting for Trump to be sworn in, referring to Biden’s pardons.
In Mr. Trump’s mind, he not only defeated the Democrats in the 2024 race; He also defeated the remnants of Republican opposition, the mainstream media and the judicial system, which he believed were weapons against him. He has occasionally claimed that the only reward he wants from his time in office is to bring “success” to the country. But it’s clear from his words and actions in his first 24 hours that he also wants something in return.
The pardons were among several actions taken on the first day – some public, some less public – that revealed his plans for revenge.
Trump revoked Secret Service protection for former national security adviser John R. Bolton, with whom he fell out. Agents have been guarding Bolton since 2021, when U.S. authorities learned of Iran’s involvement in the assassination. In 2022, criminal charges were filed against him.
Trump also revoked the security clearances of Bolton and 49 former intelligence officials who signed a letter before the 2020 election claiming that a laptop belonging to Biden’s son Hunter appeared to be part of a Russian disinformation operation.
Another Trump executive order, lost in the obscurity of Inauguration Day events, hints at a broader scope of retaliation.
The order is titled “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and its preamble asserts that the Biden administration is weaponizing its prosecutorial powers in criminal investigations of Trump and his allies. The order directs federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the intelligence community, to investigate further to prove the alleged weaponization and then send a report on wrongdoing to the White House. The order will at least involve naming and shaming.
More likely, it will provide a road map for prosecution.
The White House did not respond to an email seeking comment.
“He’s earned the power and now he’s going to use it”
Mike Davis, a Republican lawyer and Trump supporter who advocated for pardons for the Jan. 6 riot, said the president has learned a lot about executive power over the past eight years. He said Trump will not be limited by those who want to block him for what he sees as political reasons.
“This election was a referendum on Trump, MAGA and the law, and the American people delivered their verdict on November 5th,” Davis said. “He’s earned power and now he’s going to use it like a Democrat.”
Mr. Davis is not concerned about any backlash to the pardon. “He understands how to govern,” he said, adding, “He understands that public opinion can change.”
The Jan. 6 pardons culminated a four-year campaign to rewrite the history of the riots, a day in which Trump and his supporters were the victims of justice while those investigating their actions Is a villain.
That’s not always Mr. Trump’s view — or at least not the view he expresses publicly. The day after the attack, he recorded a video in which he described the attack on the Capitol as “heinous,” adding, “Those who broke the law, you will pay the price.” A second video released after the riots; his staff felt his first video was too sympathetic to the rioters and convinced him to record another video.
In the final days of his first term, Trump privately discussed the possibility of granting clemency to those involved in the riots. He abandoned the idea, but within months of leaving office, Trump began redefining January 6 as Patriotic Day, “a day of love.”
He integrated the “J6 community” into his campaign as patriotic martyrs or “hostages” as he called them. Trump played a version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” recorded by the Imprisoned Defendants Chorus on January 6 at the rally. His nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, wants to turn the song into a song with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Trump still plays the recording on the terrace at Mar-a-Lago, where guests stood and sang along, handing out hearts.
Daniel Hodges, one of the police officers who was pinned and injured at the door of the Capitol on January 6, said Trump’s whitewash of January 6 was necessary to protect his supporters against himself Kind and patriotic beliefs.
“At some point, he had to admit that these insurgents were patriots,” Officer Hodges said. If Trump does not incite the rioters, “they will have to accept the fact that they led an attack on the United States of America — something that goes very counter to their self-image.”
The speed with which the massive investigation collapsed on January 6 surprised even those who had been prepared. Not only were nearly 1,600 people granted amnesty in the span of one night, but defendants walked out of jail, including Enrique Tarrio and Joseph Biggs, who were “proud Two leaders of the Boys’ organization were sentenced to long prison terms for inciting the conspiracy.
Trump’s new interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Ed Martin, has moved to dismiss riot cases, including the trial of a former FBI agent accused of confronting officers at the Capitol and calling them Nazis , and encouraged a group of Trump supporters to kill them. Mr. Martin is a board member of the best-known legal fundraising organization established to help the January 6 defendants.
Mr. Trump has always favored a maximum approach to everything he did, but sometimes he paused when external constraints seemed unchangeable. It’s unclear how much power Washington has left to restrain him.
He has a greater ability to get what he wants than he did four years ago. He has a better understanding of the scope of his presidential powers and a greater willingness to test them in court. His order to end birthright citizenship, something he pushed the administration to enforce during his first term until the 2020 election, was met with criticism from his White House lawyer and Attorney General William P. Barr. Tell him that he has no authority to rescind the order.
He now has a more favorable judicial system, which he revamped during his first term, and he has more compliant Republican leadership in Congress. Few Republican lawmakers were willing to offer any criticism of Trump’s pardoning of the rioters.
Trump’s team has also been less restrained in his impulses. In his second term, “The West Wing,” none of his first-term aides tried to dissuade him from his most extreme ideas. In his place is a group of loyalists who may occasionally disagree on policy but truly trust his instincts, especially after his stellar return.
His team has eliminated anyone they believe is disloyal to Trump. Even those with no history of opposition to Trump are being blacklisted because of their ties to Republicans whom Trump now deems disloyal. That group includes Republicans he hired during his first term, such as Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo.
Many of Trump’s aides have been subpoenaed over the past four years, and some of his closest aides, including aide Walter Notah, have been indicted. The investigations further radicalized many of his advisers against what they disdainfully called the “deep state.” Many of them are now returning to government with him for a second take on power. They weren’t going to waste it.
