The Albany Gazette - Trump pardons of Capitol rioters spark jubiliation, outrage

Former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced as "shameful" Trump's pardons of participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the congressional session held to certify Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

"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.

Michael Fanone, a former Washington police officer who was repeatedly shocked with a Taser and badly beaten by members of the pro-Trump mob, said he has been "betrayed by my country."

"And I've been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump," 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."

Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, described Trump's pardons of members of "a mob of Trump-inspired thugs" as a "national embarrassment."

But the pardons were welcomed by January 6 defendants and their Republican backers.

Jacob Chansley, the "QAnon Shaman" who became one of the faces of the Capitol riot because of his red, white and blue facepaint, bare chest and unusual horned headgear, welcomed the pardon in a post on X.

"I GOT A PARDON BABY! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!" said Chansley. "J6ers are getting released & JUSTICE HAS COME..."

"God bless President Trump!!!" said Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump supporter.

"It's finally over. J6'ers are being released," the Georgia congresswoman said in a post on X. "Never forget what the Democrats did."

- 'I think it was a bad idea' -

Not all Republican lawmakers were as ecstatic as Greene about the blanket pardons.

"Many of them probably it was the right thing to do, they made a bad choice," Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told Spectrum News.

"But anybody who is convicted of assault on a police officer -- I can't get there at all. I think it was a bad idea."

Trump, just hours after being sworn in on Monday, granted pardons to more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol including those convicted of assaulting police officers.

Trump described the Capitol riot defendants as "hostages" and ordered that all pending criminal cases against them be dropped.

Among those pardoned 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 pro-Trump mob.

Dempsey 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 had been serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Also receiving a pardon was Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for directing a military-style assault on the Capitol.

The pardons were celebrated in posts on Proud Boys Telegram channels, with several chapters using them as recruiting tools and others volunteering to help enforce Trump's pledge to deport millions of migrants.

Stewart Rhodes, the leader of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers, was also among those released after his 18-year prison sentence was commuted to time served. Both Tarrio and Rhodes had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

The Capitol assault followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race. He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.

Trump was charged with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

But the case never made it to trial, and was dropped following Trump's November election victory under the Justice Department's policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.

(B.Smith--TAG)