WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he didn’t think people who committed violent offenses on Jan. 6, 2021, should be pardoned.
Asked Sunday if someone who assaulted law enforcement should get a pardon, Johnson said “no,” then suggested he didn’t expect it to happen.
“I think what the president said and Vice President-elect JD Vance has said is that peaceful protesters should be pardoned, but violent criminals should not,” Johnson said on “Meet the Press.”
Johnson’s statement was typical. For years, whenever a reporter has asked an elected Republican about Trump’s pledge to pardon his supporters for attacking the U.S. Capitol, they’ve said violent offenders shouldn’t get clemency.
Trump’s blanket pardon on Monday night, for anyone convicted of anything related to events at or near the Capitol, contained no exceptions for crimes of violence. The only wrinkle was that 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, groups that led the charge into the Capitol, merely had their sentences commuted while Trump considers following through with a full pardon. They will still be let out of prison like everyone else.
The sweeping act of clemency, essentially an endorsement of political violence, was easily Trump’s most shocking act on his first day back in office. While Republicans praised his other executive actions on border security and government personnel, they were silent about the pardons.
Even Vance had recently said such a broad pardon would “obviously” not be appropriate.
“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned, and there’s a little bit of a gray area there, but we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law,” Vance said earlier this month on “Fox News Sunday.”
President Donald Trump (left) and Vice President JD Vance (center) had both suggested the worst offenders charged for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021, would not get clemency. However, Trump issued a mass pardon for everyone Monday. Angelina Katsanis/Pool via Getty Images
More than 600 people have been charged with impeding or assaulting police, including 174 charged with using a weapon or injuring an officer, according to the Justice Department. They did so after Trump encouraged them to “fight like hell” and go to the Capitol to protest an election Trump falsely claimed had been rigged against him.
Trump himself, in his many public statements about pardoning the rioters over the past four years, often included a caveat that the worst offenders might not get a break.
“If somebody was evil and bad, I would look at that differently,” Trump said in April.
On Monday, Trump declined to distinguish between different levels of offense and falsely suggested his supporters had only rioted because they were manipulated by shadowy agents of Trump’s political enemies.
“There were outside agitators involved, and obviously the FBI was involved,” Trump said at the White House.
The Justice Department’s inspector general, an independent agency watchdog, reported last month that no undercover FBI agents were involved in the riot and that no confidential informants, several of whom had tagged along with extremist groups, had been directed by the FBI to encourage illegal behavior. The report amounted to an authoritative debunking of a conspiracy theory Republicans have peddled for years.
Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, told lawmakers in her confirmation hearing last week that if she were consulted on pardons, she would look at the case files, but she still made a point to condemn violence.
“I have not seen any of those files, of course. If confirmed and if asked to advise the president, I will look at each and every file. But let me be very clear in speaking to you, I condemn any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country,” Bondi said.
Encouraging case-by-case consideration was another way Republicans cautioned Trump against a wholesale pardon for violent rioters.
“I think with regard to anybody that that was violent, that you ought to take a person-by-person or case-by-case approach to it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters last week. “Not all violence is the same and not all crimes are the same on Jan. 6 or any other time. So I think the approach ought to be case-by-case for the most part.”
But many Republicans have said adamantly that rioters who attack police shouldn’t be pardoned.
“My own view is that for folks who committed crimes ― actual crimes ― they ought to be prosecuted,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said in 2022.
“I would not be in favor of shortening any of the sentences to any of the people who pled guilty to crimes,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said then.
“I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was OK,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that year. “I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future. I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it.”
In a written statement on Tuesday, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) noted the lack of commentary from his Republican colleagues since Trump announced the pardons on Monday evening.
“Silence and acquiescence from Congressional Republicans is simply not acceptable; if they do not condemn Trump’s actions today, then they should never again say that they ‘back the blue,’” Goldman said.
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.
