Vice President-elect JD Vance has stirred debate over the issue of pardoning those involved in the January 6 events at the Capitol in 2021, saying he does not support a blanket pardon for all of those who participated or were subsequently charged.
Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, Vance addressed the complex issue of potential pardons for the thousands of people who participated in the January 6 protests.
While Vance says that he believed those who peacefully protested should be pardoned, he made it clear that those who engaged in violence should serve the sentences they were given.
“If you protested peacefully on January 6 and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned,” Vance said. “If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
Vance’s remarks present a more nuanced view of comments made by President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed support for granting pardons to those involved in the January 6 events. In an interview with “Meet the Press” in December, Trump said that he would issue pardons to the protesters on his first day in office, calling them victims of a “nasty system” and criticizing their conditions in jail. However, he also said there “may be some exceptions” to the pardons “if somebody was radical, crazy.”
Following the interview, Vance took to social media to clarify his position further. In a post on X, he explained that the Trump administration would review cases to consider pardoning people who were provoked or who received unfair trials.
“First of all, I donated … 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 each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback,” Vance wrote.
“I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial,” the Vice President-elect added.
To date, more than 1,580 persons have been arrested in connection with the January 6 protests. Of those, more than 1,270 have been convicted on various charges, and more than 700 have either completed their sentences or received no prison time, according to Audacy.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, more than 350 people who were charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol protests have filed a $50 billion class action lawsuit against the Department of Justice. The lawsuit, filed on December 27, claims the DOJ engaged in politically motivated prosecutions, human rights violations, and general mistreatment of those involved in the protests.
“This massive lawsuit should knock the DOJ back on its heels,” Monty Bennett, political activist and publisher of The Dallas Express said. “They excessively prosecuted innocents with over-zealous interpretations of already overreaching federal laws. Shame on them.”