President Donald Trump‘s pen was busy on the afternoon after his inauguration, as Trump signed dozens of executive orders on a range of issues — from withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement to declaring emergencies at the border and in the energy sector, paving the way for drastic deportation measures and more “drill, baby, drill” activity, as MAGA pols like to put it.
But hardly any of the so-called “shock and awe” actions, including a legally questionable attempt to roll back constitutionally dictated birthright citizenship, taunted and troubled his critics — and flouted the law — as much as his issuance of pardons for “approximately” 1,500 January 6 participants. (This clemency including such controversial figures as Proud Boys honcho Enrique Tarrio, who was serving a 22-year-sentence for sedition after being convicted by a jury.)
The pardon of so many of those who participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and who pleaded guilty or were convicted by juries, fulfilled a Trump campaign promise in a manner far more broad than even his own Vice President JD Vance had envisioned.
Vance had asserted only days before Trump took office that those who committed violent acts on January 6 wouldn’t be pardoned. Vance (below): “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
JD Vance on January 6 pardons: “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned, and there’s a little bit of a gray area there.” pic.twitter.com/wYTH8se9zM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 12, 2025
Yet Trump, who called the insurrectionists “hostages” despite their having received due process in the U.S. justice system, made little distinction between violent and nonviolent Jan 6 attackers. He pardoned both.
Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) excoriated Trump’s move, which was the final step in MAGA’s attempt to recast the narrative of January 6 as a day of patriotic enthusiasm, despite all evidence — as juries saw — to the contrary. Frost said Trump’s pose as a “law and order” politician who “backs the blue” is exposed as a lie by Trump’s pardons for “thousands of traitors.”
The President that supposedly “backs the blue” and is for “law and order” just pardoned thousands of traitors who took part in a violent insurrection that led to the deaths of multiple people. https://t.co/OSGziD6lpi
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) January 21, 2025