Trump, re-elected, will subvert the law, first by freeing the January 6 insurrectionists
Of all the Promises that Donald Trump has made for a second term as president, he will almost certainly serve one if re-elected: pardoning most, if not all, rioters who have been arrested, convicted, or convicted by judges or juries for their role in the siege. nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021 and injured approximately 140 police defenders.
There are almost 1,400 people. “incredible patriots” all, according to Trump's harmful story, who tried to annul free and fair elections.
Most of the former president's other campaign votes—deporting millions who have long lived in this country, deploying federal troops against protesters, spending government funds as he pleases, and dismantling the public administration, for example—can be stopped by Congress or the federal courts. Many probably would be.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
However, a president's pardon power is virtually unlimited, as the Supreme Court held in 1886. And Trump, although he is not the only president in this, has abused that power before.
What could be more abusive or obscene than Unilaterally acquit would-be insurrectionists, nearly 900 today, who have been fairly prosecuted and sentenced in accordance with the rule of law that a president has sworn to uphold?
However, like many of his outrageous statements, Trump's promise to expunge criminal records and imprison them “hostages” “The first day we took office” is not as surprising as it should be. It's just Trump being Trump, talking with his mouth.
But this promise is not like the far-fetched claims that he would build a 2,000-mile border wall and that Mexico would pay for it, or that he would expel all Muslims from the country. A re-elected Trump could, and likely will, deliver on his promise to wholesale erase accountability for the fatal anti-democratic violence of January 6.
He is committed. Since his first 2024 campaign rally in Texas more than a year ago, Trump typically opens events with a recording of the so-called J6 Prison Choirformed by insurrectionary inmates in the DC jail, singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” over his recorded recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. On each occasion, Trump salutes and reiterates his promise of forgiveness. (The Washington Post identified Some of the choristers dressed in orange in a prison. video as accused of assaulting police, including Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died a day later).
As Trump tells rally-goers, “Our people love those people.”
You are not wrong: A CBS News/YouGov Poll carried out in January found that nearly two-thirds of adults opposed pardons, but two-thirds of Republicans favored them.
To restore some of the shock value of Trump's promise, it helps to put a face to “those people.” So get acquainted with Ryan T. Nichols, a 33-year-old Texan who was leader of Trump's hallowed J6 Prison Choir.
Last Thursday, Nichols was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Washington to five years in prison and a $200,000 fine — the largest financial penalty to date for a Jan. 6 defendant — after prosecutors argued he was in “a class of his own.” ” among the rioters. Believe Nichols: late on January 6, aware a video of himself in a hotel room, showing off his “weapon” (a crowbar) and yelling in the third person: “Ryan Nichols grabbed his damn guns and stormed the Capitol. And he fought! For Liberty!”
“Ryan Nichols defends violence,” he said. enraged in another video that prosecutors played.
This was after Nichols, wearing bulletproof vest and other tactical gear, spent hours at the Capitol amid the chaos. He appears in many clips: there is Nichols. wielding his lever. There is shooting a canister of pepper spray stolen from police against officers trying to defend the building, lawmakers inside, and Vice President Mike Pence. And there he is, bellowing into a megaphone to incite the crowd.
“If you have a gun, you need to get it!” he shouts in images cited in January 2021. sworn declaration for his arrest. In another, he shouts: “This is the second revolution here, friends! …This is not a peaceful protest.”
Before traveling to Washington, Nichols posted on Facebook that he would “bring the wrath of God, and there is nothing… you can do to stop it.” She arrived with another Texan and two firearms. He later wrote to a judge, in an unsuccessful attempt to be released on bail, that he had gone to the capital “because he believed that was what the president asked us to do.”
Following his arrest, Nichols spent about two years in a D.C. jail before being released pending trial after complaining of poor medical treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder dating back to his service in the Marine Corps in Japan. . When he finally pleaded guilty in November to reduced charges — assaulting law enforcement officers and obstructing an official proceeding — U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, appointed by Ronald Reagan, sent him back behind bars.
At his sentencing last week, Nichols apologized to “the victims of January 6,” including members of Congress, police officers and D.C. residents, said he would continue taking his medications and was “no longer a danger to society.” ”. The judge acknowledged the apology but said “the court has not had much success in determining the sincerity of the January 6 defendants.” Lamberth then slapped Nichols with prison time and a record fine.
What Nichols deserved. He may have been one of a kind, as prosecutors claimed, but he was not the worst of anti-democracy criminals. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio received 22 years in prison and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes received 18 years. Trump says he would undo all those convictions and sentences in an instant. And that's all the more reason voters should reject him in November.
