Judges Handling Jan. 6 Insurrection Cases Lash Out Against Trump’s Pardons

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was also handling Trump’s coup attempt case, said the pardons would not change “the historical record.”

WASHINGTON ― Federal judges presiding over the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection cases, including the one who had overseen charges against President Donald Trump himself, are excoriating his blanket pardons for all the people charged, particularly those previously convicted of violent attacks on police officers.

“No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election,” wrote U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell on Wednesday in the case of two men, one of whom was the founder of the Hawaii chapter of the militant group Proud Boys.

“No ‘process of national reconciliation’ can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity,” Howell wrote, as she dismissed charges that included assaulting a police officer.

Trump, within hours of taking the presidential oath Monday, set free nearly 1,600 of his followers who were charged for their actions on Jan. 6 intended to keep him in power. That total included hundreds convicted of assaulting police officers and about 300 defendants awaiting sentencing or still awaiting trial.

He has repeatedly described the people who were arrested and imprisoned as “hostages” and “political prisoners.” He told reporters Tuesday evening at the White House that they had been punished too harshly.