Trump pardons the Jan. 6 cop beaters

Picture: Nathan Howard/Getty Images/AFP

Republicans are busy denouncing President Biden’s pre-emptive pardons for his family and political allies, and deservedly so. But then it’s a shame you don’t hear many, if any, ruing President Trump’s proclamation to pardon unconditionally nearly all of the people who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This includes those convicted of bludgeoning, chemical spraying, and electroshocking police to try to keep Mr Trump in power. Now he’s springing them from prison.

This is a rotten message from a President about political violence done on his behalf, and it’s a bait and switch. Asked about Jan. 6 pardons in late November, Mr Trump projected caution. “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” he said. “We’re going to look at each individual case.”

Taking cues from the boss, last week Vice President JD Vance drew a clear line: “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

So much for that. The President’s clemency proclamation commutes prison sentences to time served for 14 named people, including prominent leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were organied and ready for violence. Then Mr Trump tries to wipe Jan. 6 clean, with “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals.” The conceit is that there are hundreds of polite Trump supporters who ended up in the wrong place that day and have since rotted in jail.

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they storm the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP

Out of roughly 1,600 cases filed by the feds, more than a third included accusations of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement.” The U.S. Attorney’s office said it declined “hundreds” of prosecutions against people whose only offense was entering restricted grounds near the Capitol. Of the 1,100 sentences handed down by this year, more than a third didn’t involve prison time.

The January 6 rioters who did get jail often were charged with brutal violence, including:

• Daniel Joseph “DJ” Rodriguez, sentenced to 151 months, who can be seen on video, federal prosecutors said, deploying an “electroshock weapon” against a policeman who was dragged out of the defensive line, by “plunging it into the officer’s neck.” The night before, he promised in a MAGA chat group: “There will be blood.”

• William Lewis, given 37 months, “sprayed streams of Wasp and Hornet Killer spray at multiple police officers on four distinct occasions,” forcing several to flee the line and “seek treatment for their eyes.”

• Isreal James Easterday, 30 months, blasted a cop “in the face with pepper spray at point-blank range,” after which the officer “collapsed and temporarily lost consciousness, which enabled another rioter to steal his baton.”

• Thomas Andrew Casselman, 40 months, hit multiple officers “near their faces” with pepper spray. His later internet searches included, “The statute of limitations for assault on a police officer.”

• Curtis Davis, 24 months, punched two police officers in the head. That night he filmed a video of his fist, in which he bragged: “Them knuckles right there, from one of those m — faces at the Capitol.”

• Ronald Colton McAbee, 70 months, hit a cop while wearing “reinforced brass knuckle gloves,” and he held one down on the ground as “other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds,” causing a concussion.

• Michael Joseph Foy, 40 months, brought a hockey stick with a TRUMP 2020 flag attached, which he swung “over his head and downward at police officers as if he were chopping wood.”

There are more like this, which everyone understood on Jan. 6 and shortly afterwards. “There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill,” one GOP official tweeted. “This is 3rd world style anti-American anarchy.” That was Marco Rubio, now Mr. Trump’s Secretary of State. He was right. What happened that day is a stain on Mr. Trump’s legacy. By setting free the cop beaters, the President adds another.

The Wall Street Journal