(Editor's note: This story contains offensive language)
(Reuters) – A day after US President Donald Trump granted blanket pardons to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, the American far right is celebrating. Some called for the killing of the judges who supervised the trials. Others celebrated and expressed their relief. Some even cried with joy.
Several experts who study extremism said the extraordinary turn of rioters who committed violent and non-violent crimes on January 6, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy, would embolden the Proud Boys and other extremist groups such as white supremacists who have publicly called for… Political policies. violence.
In just a few strokes, Trump quashed the largest US Department of Justice investigation and prosecution in history, as he attempted to rewrite what happened during the violent riots on January 6, 2021. As he took office for a second term on Monday, Trump continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged and that he was the rightful winner. . He described the riots as a peaceful “day of love” and not a brawl aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 US presidential election.
“We're not going to put up with this crap anymore,” Trump said at a rally after his inauguration on Monday, describing the perpetrators of the January 6 crimes as “hostages.”
For the defendants convicted on January 6, and for Trump's supporters, the pardon served as justification for unjust persecution by the president's political enemies. Gavin McInnes, the British-born founder of the Proud Boys, said in an interview that he and his friends were celebrating late Monday by “pounding bourbon and laughing our heads off.”
Before the 2020 election, Trump told the Proud Boys — an all-male violent extremist group — to “stand back and stand by.” Three months later, federal prosecutors say, the group's leaders planned the January 6 attack.
“This is a victory for us,” said McInnis, now a right-wing podcast host. He said that if Trump had not granted clemency to all members of the Proud Boys, the president “would have been dead to me, the Proud Boys, MAGA and everyone. But fortunately that didn't happen.”
In a video posted online shortly after the pardon, convicted rioter Christopher Cohen, a Marine veteran from Kansas who traveled to Washington with the Proud Boys in January 2021, cried: “I'm finally free. I don't even have the words to thank him.” . President Trump for what he did for us.” In February, he was sentenced to 75 days in prison and 24 months of supervised release on charges of obstructing law enforcement.
Another Proud Boy told Reuters the amnesty would help recruit more members. “A lot of people turned away from us after the arrests happened,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Now they will feel like they are bulletproof.”
The riots began after Trump rallied thousands of supporters to march to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress certified Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Inspired by Trump's baseless claims of election fraud, they stormed the Capitol, sparking fierce battles with police. Some officers beat officers with improvised weapons, including metal pipes, wooden poles, and baseball bats. Prosecutors said the rioters carried firearms, pistols, swords, axes and knives.
Four people died on the day of the attack, including a female protester who was shot by police. One of the Capitol Police officers who fought the rioters died the next day. Another 140 officers were injured. Four of the officers who responded to the riot later committed suicide.
Norm Pattis, a defense attorney representing the Proud Boys and the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, rejected the idea that blanket clemency would somehow lead to an increase in political violence.
“Our politics have always been violent,” Pattis said, referring to events ranging from the American Civil War to the protests of the 1960s. “So a riot lasting a few hours at the Capitol would entail years or decades behind bars? “For some people, this is disproportionate and, in my view, disgusting.”
“You need accountability”
Two police officers who were beaten while trying to repel the crowd said the pardon was a chilling sign that loyalty to Trump was now more important than the rule of law.
“It's outrageous,” former Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone told Reuters. Fanone suffered a heart attack and a brain injury after being beaten, sprayed with chemical irritants and shocked with a stun gun during the January 6 violence. Fanone, 44, who spent 20 years as a police officer, said the pardon would likely inspire other supporters to violence, “because they think Donald Trump will grant them a pardon.” Why don't they believe that?
Aquilino Gonell, a former US Capitol Police sergeant who was injured while defending the Capitol, said Trump's pardon had nothing to do with correcting injustice. He said Trump and his Republican allies “have lost their claim to the moral high ground when defending our system of government, the Constitution, and supporting the police.”
Among those pardoned were more than 300 who pleaded guilty to either assault or obstructing law enforcement, including 69 who admitted assaulting police with a dangerous or deadly weapon. Trump's order commuted the sentences of 14 people convicted of serious crimes, including Stuart Rhodes, the former leader of the Oath Keepers. Trump also pardoned others, including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy.
Nearly 300 of the rioters had ties to 46 far-right groups or movements, according to a study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a University of Maryland-based network of researchers that tracks and analyzes terrorist incidents.
Heather Shaner, a Washington attorney who served as court-appointed defense attorney for more than 40 of the defendants, called the pardon an attempt to whitewash history. “You need accountability,” she said in an interview. “Only by acknowledging the truth and providing accountability can you move forward.”
Some experts on political extremism said the pardon would motivate pro-Trump vigilantes to commit violent acts, believing they would receive legal immunity if they acted on behalf of Trump. “They will feel like they can do whatever they want,” Julie Farnham, who was assistant director of intelligence for the U.S. Capitol Police during the Jan. 6 riot, said of far-right groups. “They will feel they can because there is no leadership in the United States trying to stop this,” said Farnham, who now runs a private investigation agency.
Coy Griffin, who was stripped of his seat as a New Mexico county commissioner after being convicted of trespassing on Capitol grounds, said he has instructed his lawyers to reject Trump's pardon while he appeals his conviction in federal court. Griffin said in an interview that he believes Trump's enemies distorted the truth about the Capitol riot.
“Was there some violence against police officers? Yes, there was also a lot of violence by police officers against the crowd,” he said, repeating a frequent complaint from Trump supporters.
Death threats against human rights activists and politicians
Many Trump supporters praised the pardon on right-wing online forums. Some threatened those who supported the prosecutions.
On the pro-Trump website Patriots.Win, at least two dozen people expressed hope that Democrats, judges or law enforcement connected to the January 6 cases would be executed. They called for lawmen or police to be hanged, beaten to death, crushed in wood chippers, or thrown from helicopters.
“Get the entire federal judiciary on the field. One wrote: “Then make them listen and watch as the judges are beaten to death.” “Cut off their heads and put them on pikes outside” the Ministry of Justice.
Others called for the killing of Trump's political critics after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an influential Democrat, called the pardon a “heinous insult.” “If someone beats Pelosi, I will consider them a hero,” wrote one commenter on Patriots.Win. Another wished that Liz Cheney, the Republican who defied Trump by leading a congressional investigation into the violence, would be “hanged.”
One of the most famous rioters, Jake Angeli Chansley, who became known as the “QAnon Shaman” for wearing a horned hat at the Capitol, took to the social media platform X to celebrate after the pardon. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison in 2021, and was released from federal custody in 2023.
“NOW I'M GOING TO BUY SOME MOTHAFU*KIN GUN!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
