Donald Trump justifies his decision to pardon the perpetrators of the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021.
Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to grant clemency to people convicted of attacking police officers during the attack on the Capitol in January 2021.
The new US president took advantage of his return to the Oval Office of the White House to pardon more than 200 people who had pleaded guilty to attacking police officers during the siege of the Capitol four years ago. He also signed a decree ordering the release of around 1,500 people convicted of trying to overthrow the government.
Donald Trump suggested there may be a place in American politics for far-right groups “Proud Boys” And “Oath Keepers”who organized and rallied supporters to violence in the chaos that erupted four years ago after Joe Biden’s confirmed victory. The leaders of these two groups had been convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States.
The insurrection was sparked after he refused to accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. At least 140 police officers were injured – many beaten, bloodied and crushed by the crowd – when Trump supporters had attempted to overturn his electoral defeat.
Before the attack on the Capitol, Proud Boys were a group best known for their street fights with anti-fascist activists. The group’s former leader, Enrique Tarrio, and three other antifascist activists were convicted of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden.
Tarrio was given a 22-year sentence, the longest in any Capitol riot case, before Trump pardoned him on Monday.
When a reporter asked him about the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and whether they had a place in politics, the 47th President of the United States responded: “Well, we’ll see. They were pardoned. I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”
Donald Trump went on to say that these were people who truly loved their country and that some members of these groups had been sentenced to many years in prison for acts as trivial as taking down an anti- American.
US Vice President JD Vance previously said that those who committed acts of violence on January 6 should not “obviously not to be pardoned”. In response to a reporter asking him why he thought his vice president was wrong, Mr. Trump said: “They spent years in prison, and murderers don’t even go to prison in this country.”
The billionaire believed that his decision was fair, because the approximately 1,500 people who benefited from a total pardon did not do enough to justify the sentences imposed on them.
He stressed that the 16 commutations he granted to certain perpetrators of crimes were due to the fact that they “could have done things that were not acceptable for full pardon.”
He also abruptly pointed out to reporters at his press conference that he had won the 2024 election against former United States Vice President Kamala Harris “hands down,” because the public American has had enough of “horrible and biased people“.
The new American president, who begins his second and final term, says his presidency will “shock people”insisting that his policies will always put “America first” and restore the country to its former glory, tarnished by the four years of the Biden administration.
