US Vice President-elect JD Vance said on Sunday that the people responsible for violence during the Capitol riots “obviously” should not be pardoned.
President-elect Donald Trump promises to use his clemency powers on behalf of many of those who attempted to overturn the results of the election that Trump lost on January 6, 2021.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Vance said the pardon issue was “very simple” and said that those who “protested peacefully” should be pardoned and “if you committed violence that day, of course you shouldn’t be pardoned.” He later said it There is a “bit of a gray area” in some cases.
Trump said he would pardon rioters on “day one” of his presidency, which begins Jan. 20. “Most likely I will do it very quickly,” he said recently on NBC Meet the press.
“These people have suffered long and hard. And there may be exceptions,” he added. “I have to check. But you know, if someone was radical, they would be crazy.”
On January 6, 2021, an angry mob of Donald Trump supporters ambushed a CBC News team working near Capitol Hill. Nearly four years later, reporter Katie Nicholson tracked down one of the people who surrounded her that day to find out what she thinks about another volatile U.S. presidential election.
More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the siege, which injured more than 100 police officers and forced lawmakers into hiding as they met to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Hundreds of people who did not participate in destruction or violence were charged only with misdemeanor charges of illegally entering the Capitol. Others were charged with crimes including assault for beating police officers. Leaders of two extremist groups, Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, were convicted of seditious conspiracy after prosecutors tried to use violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden.
In a post on X, Vance responded to criticism from supporters of the Capitol rioters that his position did not go far enough to release all those convicted. “I’ve been defending these guys for years,” he said.
“The president saying he will look at every single case (and I say the same thing) is not backing down,” Vance said. “I assure you, we care about people who have been wrongfully incarcerated. Yes, that includes people who have been provoked and that includes people who have been tried for littering.”
