Trump’s blanket Jan. 6 pardons stun Republicans on Capitol Hill

President Trump’s sweeping pardons of more than 1,500 people charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, including individuals who assaulted police officers, stunned Republican lawmakers who witnessed firsthand the chaos on Capitol Hill four years ago. 

Trump’s action, which defied assurances from his allies that he would examine convictions on a case-by-case basis and not grant clemency to people who committed violence, divided GOP senators and overshadowed talk about his first-100-days agenda.

GOP lawmakers are largely willing to overlook the hundreds of people who entered the Capitol illegally four years ago, which disrupted the certification of former President Biden’s victory by several hours, but pardoning people who assaulted Capitol Police, causing dozens of injuries, was hard to swallow.

“It is wrong to pardon individuals convicted of violent crime, especially when many of the victims of their violence were law enforcement officers,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said in a statement.

Moran was expressing a view shared by many of his Senate GOP colleagues even though many of them are reluctant to criticize Trump publicly.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who’s up for reelection this election cycle, said people who assaulted police should serve out their sentences, breaking with other Republican senators who tried to avoid talking about the issue.

“It’s not right. People who assault police officers, if they do the crime, they should do the time,” he said.

Cassidy described himself as a “big 'back the blue' guy,” referring to his record of supporting law enforcement.

“Whether you’re in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Shreveport, Monroe, Lafayette, Alexandria, Lake Charles or Washington, D.C., it’s wrong to assault anybody,” he said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the blanket pardon of people convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes sends the wrong message to the police officers who protect lawmakers on a daily basis.

“I don’t think that the approach of a blanket pardon that includes those who caused harm, physical harm to our police officers, to others, that resulted in violence — I’m disappointed to see that. And I do fear the message that is sent to these great men and women who stood by us,” she said.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters outside a meeting of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday morning she does not support pardons for people convicted of “violent crimes.”

Cassidy, Murkowski and Collins are three of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting insurrection on Jan. 6.  

Other Senate Republicans joined the chorus of criticism regarding Trump’s action.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he had “concerns with any pardons for people who did harm to a police officer. Full stop.”

He called pardons for people who committed violence against officers a “bad idea.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) cited Vice President JD Vance’s (R) statement during a recent “Fox News Sunday” interview, in which he said people who “committed violence” that day “obviously … shouldn’t be pardoned.”

“Well, I think I agree with the vice president,” McConnell told Semafor. “No one should excuse violence. And particularly violence against police officers.”

The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia found that about 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6, including 80 from U.S. Capitol Police and 60 from D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department.

Even Trump’s closest allies in Congress warned Trump last month that pardoning people who attacked Capitol police personnel would be the wrong move.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in December that he wouldn’t try to stand in the way of Trump pardoning convicted Jan. 6 protesters but argued that people convicted of assaulting police officers fall in a “different category.”

“We’ll see what he does. I mean it’s been four or five years [since the attack]. The ones that hurt cops, they’d be in a different category for me, but we’ll leave that up to him,” he said.

Graham declined to talk about the sweeping pardon order on Tuesday, explaining he would have more to say about it this weekend.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) tried to dismiss the controversy when he was barraged by television camera crews outside his office in the Dirksen Building on Tuesday morning.

“Look, I don’t have any comments. I haven’t seen all the stuff, the [executive orders] that he signed yet,” he said.

“We said all along that Biden opened the door on this,” he said, referring to the former president's pardon of his son Hunter Biden in early December and his preemptive pardon of five other family members only minutes before Trump took the office.

Thune later told reporters: “We’re not looking back, we’re looking forward.”

But Republican senators acknowledged they didn’t feel good about the broad scope of Trump’s action, which wiped out the long prison sentences given to former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges.

“I wish he had done it case by case and maybe had a different outcome for some of them,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).

“But once President Biden pardoned the entire Jan. 6 Committee and his entire family, it certainly validates in many respects the desire and the move to simply put the whole thing behind us,” Cramer argued.

“It’s not ideal in my mind,” he added. “I just want to put it behind us now.”

Some Republican senators privately expressed frustration over Trump plunging into another huge controversy less than a day after being sworn into his second term.

One lawmaker said it reminded GOP senators of the daily roller coaster of controversies that marked his first term in the White House.

“It’s déjà vu,” quipped the senator.

Trump’s sweeping use of the pardon power didn’t do anything to help Senate Republicans convince Democrats to set aside partisanship to speed up the confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) slammed Trump’s action as “un-American.”

“Let’s be clear. President Trump didn’t just pardon protesters. He pardoned some people convicted of assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

“It’s a betrayal of the highest order of our Capitol Police officers who risked their lives to keep us safe,” he said.

A Washington Post poll conducted last month found that two-thirds of Americans oppose pardons for people convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes.