Some of the president's own team had signalled not all of those arrested over the Capitol riot would be released - until his order on Monday.
www.bbc.com
Until Monday, even some of Donald Trump's team did not seem to believe he would release all of those arrested after riots at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
"If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned," Vice-President JD Vance said a little over a week ago.
A few days later, testifying in front of Congress, Trump's nominee for Attorney General Pam Bondi agreed with a Democratic senator who asked her to condemn the violence of that day.
"I do not agree with violence against any police officer," she said, adding that she was willing to look individually at each of the more than 1,500 riot-linked cases.
Trump, however, took a far more sweeping approach to the cases on his first day in office.
He issued a handful of commutations and a blanket pardon that effectively
freed all the rioters and erased the work of the largest criminal investigation in US history.
...
Some observers, including policy experts and lawyers representing rioters, were taken aback by the scale of the president's order.
"The overall consensus was that we would see a differentiation between those who committed violent acts and those who did not," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a progressive not-for-profit group that opposed the pardons.
"
Donald Trump ran for office on law and order, so it's shocking and upsetting to see him taking action to pardon violent criminals," she said
...
More than 600 were charged with assaulting, resisting or obstructing police, including around 175 charged with using a weapon or causing serious injury to an officer.
...
Norm Pattis, a lawyer who defended some of the prisoners, told BBC Newshour that "the notion that somehow this event threatens the republic is overdone", adding that Confederate rebels were pardoned after the Civil War.
"If we could come together as a country after such a violent act, and after people openly took arms and killed one another… why were we still prosecuting people for criminal trespass four years later after an afternoon's riot?" he said.
Polls, however, suggest a blanket pardon including for violent convicts is unpopular. A recent
Associated Press survey indicated
only two in 10 Americans approve of pardoning most of those involved.
Winston Pingeon, a Capitol Police officer who was punched and pepper sprayed that day, told Newshour the pardons were a "
slap in the face".
"It's really an unprecedented thing to know that these violent felons who were convicted by a jury of their peers for crimes that were largely broadcast for all the country and the world to see are going to walk free," he said.
...
"The fallout from these pardons is that
Trump has sent a message that violence is a viable tool for change, as long as it's on his side," she added.
bbc.com
to the emoluments clause (grifting), and being declared above the law by the Supreme Court, the pardoning of criminal domestic January 6th terrorist, loyalty oaths, etc. are more important to me at this time. Birthright citizenship is currently in the Constitution . Not even your blessed Trump can just snap his fingers and change that anytime soon.
