US President Donald Trump offered more than 1,500 pardons on Tuesday to rioters who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021 on his behalf in an attempt to stop the certification of the presidential elections that Trump lost to Joe Biden by about seven million votes.
On that day, about 2,000 Trump loyalists, many of them armed, smashed through the windows and doors of the Capitol and overpowered police, killing one of them on the spot and injuring 174 others. Between heart attacks, succumbing to injuries and and even some ensuing suicides, the attacks left eight dead overall.
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AFP reported that among those receiving clemency was David Dempsey, 37, a California man who pleaded guilty to assaulting two police officers and was described by prosecutors as one of the “most violent” members of the mob. He used his “hands, feet, flag poles, crutches, pepper spray, broken pieces of furniture, and anything else he could get his hands on, as weapons against the police,” prosecutors said.
Dempsey’s 20-year prison sentence was commuted to time served.
Trump’s sweeping pardons of the violent mob of his followers elicited outrage from both parties, and from the law enforcement officials involved.
A former Washington police officer whom the rioters beat and shocked with a Taser said he felt “betrayed by my country.”
“I’ve been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump,” Michael Fanone told CNN. “The leader of the Republican Party pardoned hundreds of violent cop assaulters. Six individuals who assaulted me as I did my job on January 6 will now walk free.”
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Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the pardons “shameful.”
“The president’s actions are an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution,” Pelosi said.
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said that the incoming president’s leniency toward a “a mob of Trump-inspired thugs” was a “national embarrassment.”
Said Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina: “Anybody who is convicted of assault on a police officer, I can’t get there at all. I think it was a bad idea.”
A week ago, at least, now-Vice President JD Vance agreed.
“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” Vance said to Fox News.
On the other hand, Trump’s most vocal fanatics on Capitol Hill, such as Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, were quick to praise both God and Trump for the release of the cop-killers.
“God bless President Trump!!!” the junior representative and far-right provocateur wrote on social media platform X. “It’s finally over. J6’ers are being released… Never forget what the Democrats did.”
One of the most recognizable figures in he insurrectionist mob was Jacob Chansley, also known as the “QAnon Shaman” (referencing the QAnon right-wing conspiracy theory website) and much-photographed on that day because of his Vikingesque horned headgear, wrote on X:
“I GOT A PARDON BABY! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!! J6ers are getting released & JUSTICE HAS COME...”
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