Pamela Hemphill served 60 days in prison for participating in the riots of January 6, 2021. According to her, the Trump administration is trying to “rewrite history” and she “does not want to be part of that.”
Donald Trump’s decision came just hours after his return to power. The 47th President of the United States signed the decree Monday evening at the White House pardoning more than 1,500 participants in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, an unprecedented desecration of the sanctuary of American democracy. “It’s for January 6, for the hostages, around 1,500 people who will be completely pardoned”he declared as he signed the document in the Oval Office.
If this initiative aroused a wave of enthusiasm among its supporters, and anger among its opponents, it also led to more surprising reactions. One of the people who served a prison sentence for participating in the clashes, Pamela Hemphill, refused to be pardoned by the American president.
“We were wrong that day, we broke the law and there should be no pardon”she said on the Newsday program of the BBC . Nicknamed the “Grandma Maga” by Internet users on social networks, in reference to Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again”, she believes “that accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol Police, the rule of law and, of course, our nation”.
Sentenced to 60 days in prison, she pleaded guilty in court. “I pleaded guilty because I was guilty, and accepting a pardon would only serve to contribute to their gaslighting and misrepresentation of the facts.”she declared to our British colleagues. For the attacker, the Trump government is trying to “rewrite history and I don’t want to be part of that”. The case of Pamela Hemphill is not a first: convicts have already refused a pardon and have the power to do so under the American Constitution, according to the Supreme Court.
-“They were treated very unfairly”
This pardon benefits all those convicted for participation in the assault on the Capitol, with the exception of 14, whose sentence is commuted to prison time already served. “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice inflicted on the American people over the past four years and begins a process of national reconciliation”according to the text of the decree published by the White House.
Participants in the storming of the Capitol “were treated very unfairly”estimated Donald Trump. On the contrary, the former Democratic President of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, present at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was indignant against a “insult to the judicial system” American. In a press release, she accused the Republican president of having been guilty of “of abandonment and betrayal of the police officers who risked their lives to stop an attempt to subvert the transfer of powers”.
Donald Trump has regularly downplayed the seriousness of the January 6, 2021 assault, describing this date as a “day of love” and of “overflow of affection” towards him. That day, hundreds of his supporters, heated by his baseless accusations of electoral fraud, stormed the Capitol, to try to prevent the certification of the victory of his opponent Joe Biden. Since then, some 1,600 people have been arrested and charged, of whom more than 1,270 have been convicted.
