Donald Trump Is Signaling to Jan. 6 Rioters That He’d Dish Out Pardons If President Again

In a Thursday appearance on a fringe conservative radio program, Donald Trump said he’d consider pardoning those convicted in connection with the January 6 attack on the US Capitol if he is elected in 2024. “I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” said the former president—a move he has floated in the past, including at a Texas rally in January.

“I met with and I’m financially supporting people that are incredible,” he added in the interview with Wendy Bell, a talk radio personality and Newsmax host. “And they were in my office actually two days ago. It’s very much on my mind. It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to them.” He went on to describe the Capitol rioters as “mostly” fireman, policemen, and members of the military. (On the same day that Trump made his pardon promise, former New York Police Department officer Thomas Webster was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty on six charges, including assaulting a police officer, the longest January 6–related sentence yet.)

Trump also suggested that the federal prosecutors and judges involved in Capitol riot cases were “sick” and “cold,” adding, “They’re the most coldhearted people, they don’t care about families, they don’t care about anything.” According to The Washington Post, nearly 250 people have been sentenced so far in connection to January 6—a day that saw pro-Trump rioters storm the Capitol complex and injure scores of police officers in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

The inflammatory comments came as the Justice Department ramps up its probe of the former president over the more than 320 classified documents that were stored at his Mar-a-Lago home and the efforts he may have taken to “obstruct the government’s investigation” into potential violations of the Espionage Act and the mishandling of government records.

Since the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search last month, Trump has gone on the offensive in media appearances, on the campaign trail, and on social media. Earlier this week, he used his Truth Social account to share the QAnon catch phrase “Where We Go One We Go All,” a years-old message from “Q” criticizing the deep state, and a demand that either he be declared “the rightful winner” of the 2020 election or that a new election be held. Since its launch in May, Truth Social, the Twitter clone Trump created after being banned by every notable social media platform last year, has become a cesspool for QAnon, a conspiracy theory that portrays Trump as a courageous leader fighting a cabal of elite pedophiles in Washington and Hollywood.  

The current president, meanwhile, gave a major address outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Thursday night as part of the White House’s counteroffensive against his predecessor and the MAGA philosophy. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” said Biden while being flanked by a dark red and blue backdrop and two Marines standing at attention. ”They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6 brutally attacking law enforcement, not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger at the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.” This weekend, Trump, who falsely accused Biden of threatening to use “military force” against Americans during his speech, will make an appearance of his own in the Keystone State. “BIG rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday,” Trump wrote in a Wednesday post. “Much, much, much to say.”