WASHINGTON – Current former President Donald Trump they face serious criminal charges As of Jan. 6, he said he would “absolutely” consider pardoning each if elected. hundreds of criminals He was tried in connection with the attack on the US Capitol.
But Trump’s campaign told NBC News that such pardons would be “on a case-by-case basis,” not the type of pardons that Trump hinted at in a recent interview. Time magazine.
Trump told Time that he was considering pardoning any of the Capitol rioters, whom he described as “J-6 patriots.” Those accused on January 6 would also be included in that group firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batonsa metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, tomahawk axe, axe, hockey stick, gloves, a baseball bat, a large “Trump” billboard, “Trump” flagsa fork, pieces of wood, armrests and even an explosive device During the brutal attack in which about 140 policemen were injured. “If somebody was mean and bad, I would look at it differently,” Trump said he added In an interview with Time.
Trump’s campaign said in a statement to NBC News after Friday’s conviction the latest About 1,000 defendants who pleaded guilty in court on Jan. 6 or were found guilty by a jury of their peers said Trump would issue individual rulings in more than 1,387 cases filed so far.
“As President Trump has promised, he will pardon the January 6th protesters wrongfully imprisoned by the crooked Joe Biden Justice Department, and those decisions will be determined on a case-by-case basis once he returns to the White House,” Carolyn Leavitt told the Trump campaign’s national press. said the secretary.
Last month, Trump said, “for free“January 6”pledges” as one of his “first acts” as president. But the new campaign statement avoided using the term “hostages,” a phrase that drew criticism from some relatives of the real hostages stolen in the October 7 Hamas attack. About Israel. Around January 15, 6 suspects are currently on trial after federal judges determine that there is clear and convincing evidence that they are a danger to their community or a flight risk. According to prosecutors, the vast majority of pretrial detainees were caught on video attacking officers. All other defendants in jail on Jan. 6 are serving sentences after being sentenced by a federal judge.
Trump’s campaign statement came in response to a question from NBC News about the verdict last week John SullivanAmong the defendants of January 6, there is a majority of political defectors He announced that they acted with Trump’s election lies. Sullivan is not a Trump supporter, raising questions about whether the former president will try to pardon him. Prosecutors said Sullivan was an “extra-institutional” activist who wanted to “burn everything down” and tried to “incite violence” and “incite anarchy” during the January 6 attack. Sullivan before He identified himself as a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement (although activists distanced themselves from Sullivan before January 6) and was filmed bragging about how his target was after the Capitol attack.o Raise the f— s— Trump supporters.”
Sullivan – said he recorded the video as evidence in court “trick“to avoid arrest, he attempted to pass himself off as a journalist after January 6th and later filmed himself licensing media outlets, including NBC News – sentenced to 6 years in federal prison. rioter According to an NBC News analysis, the average prison term of more than 500 rioters sentenced to prison is about eight months, while hundreds of additional rioters received only probation.
Trump’s position has evolved since he started There is a possibility of amnesty in January 2022At a time when 700 people were charged The longest sentence given to a January 6 rioter was five yearsand On January 6, none of the suspects actually appeared in court. Now, in 2024, approximately 1,400 defendants have been charged. the longest sentence on January 6 is 22 yearsand trials are held on a weekly basis at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse near the U.S. Capitol.
Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill, who also support clemency for the January 6 defendants, have generally avoided going into specific details about their cases and instead talked more broadly about the group. When Trump embraces individual protesters, it sometimes causes some backlash, like his time the rioter hugged the convict he said, “I’d like Mike Pence’s front-seat execution.”
Julie Kelly, a conservative writer who focuses on the January 6 events, told NBC News that a Trump aide called her in the summer of 2022 to ask about the possibility of releasing the January 6 defendants who were being held in jail pending trial. Unlike many state systems, pretrial detention in the federal system is based on the defendant’s flight risk and danger to society, not on the defendant’s cash availability. Kelly had to explain to an aide that the judges had ordered the defendants to be held pending trial on Jan. 6 and that bail was not an option, she said.
Soon, Kelly and Cynthia Hughes – one January 6, the lawyer of the suspects who will be speaking at a Trump rally soon and who will be speaking hosted fundraisers At Trump’s club in Bedminster, New Jersey, he met Trump himself, Kelly told NBC News. The meeting took place in August 2022, a few weeks after that The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion, which soon led to the first federal criminal charges against the former president. (Trump has pleaded not guilty to both the classified documents case, the election interference case, and state charges in Georgia. Trump’s A hush money trial continues in New York.)
Kelly said during the 2022 meeting that he spent time briefing Trump on Jan. 6 about allegations against the defendants that he did not know about. “Your supporters say we were there for him, where is he for us?” Kelly told him.
The details of the meeting were given earlier in the book “Riot Hunters: How January 6 Undermined the Justice System,” in The New York Timesand Semaphore. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters continue to be sentenced in federal court. Their motives for attacking the Capitol, reflected in their indictments and their own videos and writings, are often clear: They believed Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election. A judge is scheduled to issue a sentence Thursday Ryan NicholsA Trump fan who boasts of being “pro-violence” called January 6 a “second revolution” and attacked officers with a chemical weapon.
“So, yes, today, Ryan Nichols, Ryan Nichols took his gun and stormed the Capitol and fought! For freedom!” In the video recorded on January 6, Nichols said with a crowbar in his hand.
Nichols is one of many defendants on Jan. 6 later told authorities they were duped by Trump’s lies. According to a 2021 FBI memo filed by the defense team, Nichols “no longer trusts the president or other prominent rights leaders because he feels they have steered him in the wrong direction” and specifically noted “statements made by President Trump. , Rudy Giuliani, Sidney PowellGenerals Michael Flynn and Lynn Wood helped shape his opinion.