'No one should excuse violence': Top Senate Republican rips Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters

21 Jan 2025, 19:30 by https://www.facebook.com/17108852506 · AlterNet

U.S. President Donald Trump signs pardons for January 6 defendants in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Carl Gibson
January 21, 2025Frontpage news and politics

President Donald Trump's decision to pardon roughly 1,500 defendants charged and/or convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol isn't going over well with one high-profile Senate Republican.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who was the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate for 17 years — openly criticized the 47th president of the United States in an interview with Semafor. McConnell referenced Vice President JD Vance's remarks a week before the inauguration in which he said that January 6 rioters who attacked police officers "obviously" shouldn't be pardoned.

"I agree with the vice president," the Kentucky Republican said. "No one should excuse violence. And particularly violence against police officers."

Just before he left office, former President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to members of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, along with some of the former Capitol Police Department officers who provided testimony to both the committee and against some of the January 6 defendants. Former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn posted to Bluesky on Tuesday that his former colleague, Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, has been inundated with automated calls from the Department of Justice letting him know that defendants he testified against have been released from federal prison.

According to Semafor, McConnell — who voted to acquit Trump during his second impeachment trial in response to the January 6 attack and endorsed his 2024 campaign – has made it clear he supports Trump but won't hesitate to speak out against him on issues where they disagree. He emphasized that he and Trump don't see eye-to-eye on certain national security issues (like supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia) and on tariffs.

Just before the November election, McConnell slammed Trump as a "sleazeball" and lamented that former President Ronald Reagan — a longtime Republican icon — wouldn't recognize today's Republican Party that Trump has fully remade in his image. He added that both Trump and his supporters have "done a lot of damage to our party's image and our ability to compete."

"I don’t know whether you can make a conclusive argument that [Trump]’s directly responsible for [January 6 rioters] storming the Capitol, but I think it’s not in dispute that those folks would not have been here in the first place if he had not asked them to come and to disrupt the actual acceptance of the outcome of the election," McConnell told biographer Michael Tackett last October.

Click here to read Semafor's full article.