US Vice President-elect JD Vance said on Sunday that those responsible for the violence during the Capitol riots should “obviously” not be pardoned.
President-elect Donald Trump is promising to use his pardon power on behalf of many of those who attempted on January 6, 2021, to overturn the results of the election that Trump lost.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Vance said the issue of pardons is “very simple,” saying those who “protested peacefully” should be pardoned and “if you committed violence that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.” He later said there was a “gray area” in some cases.
Trump said he would pardon the rioters on “day one” of his presidency, which begins January 20. “Most likely, I will do it very quickly,” he said recently on the NBC show. Meet the press.
“These people have suffered long and hard. And there may be some exceptions,” he added. “I have to look. But, you know, if someone was radical, crazy.”
On January 6, 2021, an angry mob of Donald Trump supporters invaded a CBC News crew working near Capitol Hill. Nearly four years later, journalist Katie Nicholson tracked down one of the people around her that day to find out what she was thinking as another volatile US presidential election approaches.
More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the siege that left more than 100 police officers injured and forced lawmakers into hiding as they gathered to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Hundreds of people who did not engage in destruction or violence were charged only with minor offenses for illegally entering the Capitol. Others have been charged with criminal offenses, including assault for beating police officers. The leaders of two extremist groups, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to use violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden.
In an article on X, Vance responded to criticism from supporters of the Capitol rioters that his position did not go far enough to free all those convicted. “I’ve been defending these guys for years,” he said.
“The president saying he will review every case (and me saying the same thing) is not a step backwards,” Vance said. “I assure you that we care about people who are unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people who are provoked and that includes people who have had a scum trial.”
