January 6 rioters and judges digest the impact of Trump’s victory

Donald Trump loomed large over the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, last week as people who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to stop the peaceful transfer of power and the judges overseeing their cases grappled with the meaning of the former president’s victory.

Donald Trump loomed large over the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, last week as people who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to stop the peaceful transfer of power and the judges overseeing their cases grappled with the meaning of the former president’s victory. Trump repeatedly said during his campaign that he would pardon some people who participated in the attack if reelected, and a number of criminal defendants last week seized on his pledge and sought to delay any new action in their cases. Attorneys for some defendants also suggested Trump’s victory was unfair in light of the fact that rioters are still being prosecuted and sentenced. Special counsel Jack Smith, meanwhile, is winding down the January 6 criminal case against Trump. “The person who planned that day is never going to suffer any consequences for his role in it,” attorney Elizabeth Mullin said in a hearing last week before her client, Jaimee Avery, who had pleaded guilty to two low-level charges and was given 18 months of probation. Talk of potential presidential pardons permeated at least one violent rioter’s sentencing Thursday, when Zachary Alam told a judge he had no remorse for his actions. “Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what’s right,” Alam said. Alam, dressed in orange prison clothes, went on to say that there has been a lot of talk of pardons, but that he “will not accept a second-class pardon. I want a full pardon.”