Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) defended President Trump’s sweeping pardons of those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including numerous people who violently attacked police officers.
“The president’s made his decision. I don’t second-guess those,” Johnson said at a press conference Wednesday.
“It’s kind of my ethos, my worldview: We believe in redemption. We believe in second chances,” Johnson added. “You could argue that those people didn’t pay that heavy penalty, having been incarcerated and all of that. That’s up to you. But the president’s made a decision. We move forward. There are better days ahead of us.”
Trump, in the first hours of his presidency, granted a full and unconditional pardon to the bulk of those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the certification of electors for former President Biden as Trump denied the results of the 2020 election.
About 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants got full pardons, and Trump commuted the sentences of 14 members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who plotted to stop the transfer of power.
Full pardons, though, were granted to former Proud Boys national Chair Enrique Tarrio, who got the longest sentence in connection with the attack; David Dempsey, who used flagpoles and pepper spray to battle police officers; and Julian Khater, who had pepper sprayed officers including Brian Sicknick, who went on to die a day after the riot.
Johnson did not directly answer a question about what Trump’s pardons say about Republican assertions that they “back the blue.”
“Everybody can describe this however they want. The president has the pardon and commutation authority. It’s his decision,” Johnson said Wednesday.
“What was made clear all along is that peaceful protests and people who engage in that should never be punished. It was a weaponization of the Justice Department. There was a weaponization of the events following, you know, the prosecution that happened after Jan. 6,” Johnson said. “It was a terrible time and a terrible chapter in America’s history.”
The day before Trump’s pardons, Johnson had signaled he did not expect those who were violent on Jan. 6 to get pardons.
“I think what the president said and Vice President-elect JD Vance has said is that peaceful protesters should be pardoned, but violent criminals should not. That’s a simple determination,” Johnson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s up to the president on that. But there’s been a lot of talk about it. But we’ll see what happens.”
