Trump Pardons Nearly All January 6 Convicts: Promise Kept or Too Far?

As one of his first actions in office, President Trump signed an executive order pardoning almost all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The Details: When signing the order, he said, “They’ve been treated very unfairly. The judges have been absolutely brutal. The prosecutors have been brutal. I see murderers from this country get two years, one year, and maybe no time, but they’ve already been in jail for a long time.”

Threat To Democracy: The New York Times Editorial Board (Left bias) chronicled some of the prisoners’ actions and claimed Trump’s order makes a “mockery” of the U.S. justice system and “sends a message to the country and the world that violating the law in support of Mr. Trump and his movement will be rewarded.” The Times criticized President Biden’s “dubious” pardons of his family members and other close allies, but Trump’s effort to “erase a crime committed against the foundations of American democracy” is an action of “an entirely different scope.”

Campaign Promise Kept: Fox News (Right) highlighted that in a TV interview with NBC News (Lean Left), former House Speaker and Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy was asked how he compared Biden’s last-minute pardons to Trump’s promised January 6 pardons. McCarthy said, “This is the difference. This president told the American public, while he was campaigning for office, ‘if I’m elected president, I will pardon these people. Compare this to Joe Biden, who said he would never pardon his son, who now, on the very last day in the last 30 minutes, pardons his entire family.”