'Potential for backlash is real' for Trump's MAGA rioter pardons: expert
President Donald Trump's decision to issue a blanket pardon to rioters who stormed the Capitol four years ago is controversial even among some people who voted for him, and one legal expert thinks that the "potential for backlash is real" in the coming months and years.
Writing at Politico, former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori argues that Trump is likely deluding himself if he believes he can simply execute a mass pardon of violent criminals and not have it come back to haunt him.
The reason for this, he contends, is that people convicted of violent crimes have high rates of recidivism after leaving prison and it's unlikely that the people who attacked Capitol police and were then valorized by Trump as "hostages" for years will be any different.
"We may see and read stories in the years to come involving Jan. 6 defendants pardoned by Trump who went on to commit more — and potentially more serious — crimes," he warns. "This is not idle speculation. Several people who received pardons or commutations in the final days of Trump’s first term went on to be charged with committing more crimes."
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He writes that this is likely to be particularly true of the most hardened January 6th participants such as members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia.
"Trump has once again sent a disturbing message to his supporters: If you engage in political violence on my behalf, I will protect you," he writes. "Tarrio, Rhodes and their associates should feel emboldened, and there is no telling what they will do with Trump now firmly behind them."
The bottom line, he concludes, is that Trump "may not be so lucky" if he thinks that his mass pardon will forever close the book on January 6, 2021.
