Trump ‘to pardon peaceful, not violent Jan 6 protesters’: Vance

JD Vance told Fox News there were scores of individuals who ‘were prosecuted unfairly’ after the Capitol riots and said the Trump administration will ‘rectify that.’

US Vice-President elect JD Vance. Picture: AFP,

Donald Trump will issue pardons for peaceful protesters on January 6, 2021 — but not violent rioters, according to JD Vance.

The Vice-President elect told Fox News there were scores of individuals who “were prosecuted unfairly” after the Jan. 6 ransacking of the Capitol and that the Trump administration will “rectify that.”

“If you protested peacefully on January the 6th, and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned,” Mr Vance, 40, said.

“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned. And there’s a little bit of a grey area there. But we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law.”

Vance later responded to backlash over his comments — with some accusing him of “walking back” promises to pardon people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“The president saying he’ll look at each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback,” he posted on X.

First of all, I donated to the to the J6 political prisoner fund and got ROASTED for it during my senate race. I've been defending these guys for years.

Second, there were federal informants in the crowd. Do they get a pardon? I don't think so. The president saying he'll look at… https://t.co/MDUWkd37fP

— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 12, 2025

Mr Trump has long teased plans to issue clemency towards some of the individuals charged, but he’s also caveated that his administration would look at each case individually.

Since the storming of the Capitol four years ago, prosecutors have filed charges against more than 1,500 people. Nearly 1,300 have been convicted and 1,100 sentenced, according to a tracker from the Associated Press. Only two were acquitted.

Most of the charges revolved around illegal parading, entering a restricted area and disorderly conduct. But there were at least 238 charges pertaining to assault and 86 tied to physical violence.

Mr Vance also weighed in on the California wildfire crisis, saying that he was “heartbroken” over the devastation caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles County.

But he also faulted a “serious lack of competent governance” for the scale of the destruction.

“Some of these reservoirs have been dry for 15, 20 years. The fire hydrants are being reported as going dry while the firefighters are trying to put out these fires,” he said.

“There is a serious lack of competent governance in California. And I think it’s part of the reason why these fires have gotten so bad. We need to do a better job at both the state and federal level.”

Both Mr Vance, 40, and Mr Trump, 78, have been outspoken against California’s handling of the wildfires, particularly, what they argue was the lack of sufficient preparations the Golden State.

Trump has accused officials of not properly managing the forest to remove dry wood and of not having enough water in anticipation of wildfires — despite much of the state being a tinderbox.

“President Trump cares about all Americans,” Mr Vance said. “I think that he intends to have FEMA and other federal responses much, much better and much more clued into what’s going on there on the ground.

“President Trump often says that the coalition that made him the president was just a commonsense coalition,” he continued. “The thing that united us is just this basic idea that, yes, government should be smaller but when government does the things that it should do, it ought to do them well.”

Mr Trump has directed many of those criticisms at California in the past, particularly over forest management when fires broke out in the Golden State during his first administration.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and other California officials have fretted that Trump may attempt to leverage federal aid to extract concessions from the Golden State.

Vance affirmed that Trump intends to help California recover from the brutal wildfires that killed at least 16 people and burned down over 12,300 homes.

“President Trump is committed to doing a better job when it comes to disaster relief. That’s true for the hurricane victims and flood victims in North Carolina. It’s true for the fire victims in California,” he stressed. “That doesn’t mean you can’t criticise the governor of California for, I think, some very bad decisions.”

Newsom has called for an independent investigation into the dry fire hydrants that foiled the response and foreshadowed forthcoming reforms.

Vance also downplayed the spectre of Mr Trump deploying military force to take the Panama Canal or Greenland. Mr Trump has already ruled out military action against Canada but left it on the table for the other two.

“We don’t have to use military force,” Mr Vance argued. The thing that people always ignore is we have already troops in Greenland. … The people of Greenland want to be empowered to develop the resources there.

“We also need to make sure that Greenland is properly cared for from an American security perspective. And frankly, the current leadership, the Danish government has not done a good enough job of securing Greenland,” Mr Vance said.

“There actually is a real opportunity here for us to take leadership to protect America’s security, to ensure that those incredible natural resources are developed.”

The New York Post