NewsNation host Chris Cuomo on Thursday chided Democrats for attacking President Donald Trump over pardoning Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, arguing it will not help them politically.
Trump on Monday signed an executive order granting full pardons to an estimated 1,500 Jan. 6 protesters. Cuomo, on “The Chris Cuomo Project,” condemned the riot, but said it is a “waste of time” to focus on the pardons as Democrats should instead prioritize issues that will advance their agenda.
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“Some of these people that he let out on J6 hurt people. They did it for bad reason and they planned it. Now, the election is over. His sympathies towards those people have been weighed and measured by the American people. He said during the campaign he would pardon them and now he did,” Cuomo said. “For you to renew the litigation over it is a waste of time and will change nothing. ‘Oh, but we must call it.’ No, you must not call out every grievance. No, you don’t have to do that. It is not a requirement. You’re supposed to be doing things that are effective to your goals, your political goals. ‘Oh, I’m law and order.’ Please, spare me that shit, okay?”
“What we’re about too often is advantage and you will not get advantage over Trump by criticizing him for releasing the J6 people … And you have to remember there is a moral confusion on this,” he continued. “I think attacking the Capitol was worse than anything that I have seen, but I do understand the perspective of people who watched all the BLM [Black Lives Matter] stuff, and all the businesses that were ruined and all the violence and all the destruction and the police station and that nothing happened to anybody. I get it. I do not see them as the same, but I understand why it motivates a certain understanding about January 6th that I do not agree with. But I get it. And I get it enough to know that I’m not going to change it, and neither will you.”
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley also said Tuesday that the harsh way former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice managed the cases of Jan. 6 defendants provided justification for Trump pardoning them. For instance, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in March 2024 found that certain defendants experienced a wrongful extension of their sentences.
Moreover, Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin condemned the use of solitary confinement for Jan. 6 defendants ahead of their trials, Politico reported in April 2021.
“The Department of Justice really made the case for these pardons, and it was hard to do because most of us supported the people responsible for the riot being held accountable. It was a terrible day,” Turley said. “But the Justice Department unleashed what one of its top lawyers called a shock and awe campaign and they just scooped up hundreds of people. They often demanded really excessive sentences in my view. Most of these people were charged with just trespass or unlawful entry. Most of them were not violent. The government tended to oppose bail.”
“They kept a number of them for a very long time in segregation. In some cases, they demanded limitations on what people could say or read or associate after they were released. All of this tended to undermine their case,” he continued. “And so when the president campaigned on this issue, I think a lot of people wanted to see this chapter closed. And he certainly did that. I mean, this was broader than most people expected or even asked for.”
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