Republicans struggle to answer for Trump’s pardon on January 6 defendants just hours into his presidency

Republican senators struggled to defend Donald Trump’s decision to commute and pardon hundreds of January 6 protesters including those who were charged and convicted of crimes against police officers, just hours after the president entered office Monday.

Republican senators struggled to defend Donald Trump’s decision to commute and pardon hundreds of January 6 protesters including those who were charged and convicted of crimes against police officers, just hours after the president entered office Monday. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, who has warned before about giving a blanket pardon to the rioters, said, “I just can’t agree” with Trump’s decision to commute the sentences or pardon a vast swath of January 6 insurrection participants. He added the move “raises a legitimate safety issues on Capitol Hill” before also attacking former President Joe Biden’s pardons in his final hours in office. Trump’s executive action, which many GOP senators had hoped would be directed at only nonviolent offenders who entered the Capitol that day, thrust Republicans once again into a familiar posture of navigating how and when to distance themselves from the sitting president and leader of their party. And Republicans largely attempted to sidestep direct questions about whether they personally agreed with Trump’s action, arguing it was up to the president to use his pardon powers at his discretion. Trump pardoned more than 1,000 people who were charged in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He also commuted the sentences of 14 people in the Proud Boy or Oath Keepers who were charged with seditious conspiracy. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, sidestepped questions about the pardons, saying, “We’re looking at the future, not the past” when asked whether it was a mistake for Trump.