An NPR review of social media posts, speeches and interviews found that Trump has made calls to “free” Jan. 6 defendants or promised to issue them presidential pardons more than a dozen times. Trump has said he would issue those pardons on “day one” of his presidency, as part of a broader agenda to use presidential power to exact “retribution” against his opponents and deliver “justice” for his supporters.
“We’ll be looking very, very seriously at full pardons,” Trump told an interviewer in 2022. “I mean full pardons with an apology to many.”
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO,” Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, in March 2023.
Later that year, Trump re-posted a Truth Social post stating, “The cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed.”
In the immediate term, a pardon for Jan. 6 defendants would free them from prison as well as other court-ordered supervision, and end ongoing prosecutions. The pardon would also allow the hundreds of defendants convicted of felonies to legally own guns again.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Though Trump is facing four criminal prosecutions, including two indictments related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election himself, polls have consistently shown that the former president maintains a substantial lead in the Republican presidential primary.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was open to pardoning Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the extremist group the Proud Boys, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
“The Special Counsel’s office, in their court filings, they’re showing that they are tracking Trump’s comments about the Jan. 6 rioters, including the Proud Boys and others,” said Joscelyn, who was the principal author of the Jan. 6 select committee’s report.
Trump’s stated promise to act as a “dictator” on day one of his presidency, alongside his description of his political enemies as “vermin,” his call for the “termination” of provisions in the Constitution and his claim that unauthorized immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, have led his critics to fear how he will use presidential power.
Hughes started the group after a longtime family friend - a former Army Reservist named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli who is known for making extreme racist and antisemitic comments and once going to work with a “Hitler mustache” - was arrested and ultimately convicted for breaching the Capitol, obstructing Congress and disorderly conduct.
That feeling has only been intensified by what he called the “information war” around the Capitol riot, with former President Trump, Republicans in Congress, and right-wing media outlets all seeking to downplay or even deny the violence of that day.
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