Presidential decree | Trump grants pardon to more than 1,500 Capitol attackers

(Washington) Donald Trump signed on Monday evening at the White House the decree 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.

Shortly before, the new American president had announced that he would exercise his power of pardon from the first day of his mandate, as he had promised during his campaign.

“It’s for January 6, for the hostages, around 1,500 people who will be completely pardoned,” he said while signing the decree in the Oval Office.

“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 executive order released by the White House.

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.

These are members of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys movements, including the founder of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, sentenced to 18 years in prison.

All the others, including the former leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, sentenced in September 2023 to 22 years in prison, the heaviest sentence handed down for the assault on the Capitol, receive a full pardon.

“We hope they will come out tonight,” said Donald Trump during the signing. The decree also cancels the proceedings still pending against a few hundred people.

The participants in the assault on the Capitol “were treated very unfairly,” he reiterated. “The judges were absolutely merciless. The prosecutors too,” he insisted.

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 an “insult to the American judicial system”.

In a press release, she accused the Republican president of being guilty of “abandonment and betrayal of the police officers who risked their lives to stop an attempt to subvert the transfer of powers.”

Parliamentary commission of inquiry

Donald Trump has regularly downplayed the seriousness of the attack on January 6, 2021, describing this date as a “day of love” and “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.

Arrests and trials continued until recent days.

A resident of the state of Virginia, near Washington, Lewis Wayne Snoots, 59, was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison for assaulting and resisting police officers.

Donald Trump was not directly concerned by the courts for these events, although the parliamentary commission of inquiry into January 6, 2021 recommended criminal proceedings against him in December 2022, in particular for calling for rebellion and plotting against American institutions.

In order to prevent the members of this commission from reprisals from Donald Trump returning to the White House, Joe Biden himself signed a presidential pardon decree a few hours before ceding power to him.

Former Republican parliamentarian Liz Cheney will benefit from it, as will all the elected officials and civil servants who participated in the commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol, as well as the police officers who testified before this commission.