Senator Lindsey Graham said Sunday he doesn’t approve of President Trump’s pardons for January 6 defendants who were convicted of violent crimes, particularly those who “beat up cops.”
Asked during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union whether he is okay with the pardons for violent offenders, the South Carolina Republican said “No.”
“I’ve always said that I think when you pardon people who attack police officers, you’re sending the wrong signal to the public at large, and that’s not what you want to do to protect cops,” Graham explained. “But he has that power.”
He went on to speak out against former President Biden’s pardons for his family members and of the defendants who shot two FBI agents in South Dakota.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it on either side, and I think the public doesn’t like it either. So if this continues, if this is the norm, it may be an effort to rein in the pardon power of the president as an institution,” Graham said.
Trump issued pardons for 1,500 defendants who were prosecuted for their role in the Capitol riot and said he would commute the sentences of 14 others, fulfilling a campaign promise on his first day in office.
The blanket pardon included the roughly 900 defendants who were convicted on misdemeanor charges as well as the hundreds of others convicted of more serious offenses. Some 600 January 6 defendants were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding police, including almost 200 rioters who carried weapons. The misdemeanor defendants, meanwhile, were largely charged for having trespassed in the Capitol without committing any violence or destruction and most received sentences of probation or home confinement.
Among those defendants whose sentences were commuted by Trump are Stewart Rhodes, who led the right-wing street gang Oath Keepers, and Dominic Pezzola, one of the first people to breach the Capitol who was convicted of assaulting a police officer.
Ahead of Trump’s pardons, Vice President J. D. Vance said last week that violent defendants “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned.
But after receiving pushback, Vance clarified that Trump planned to look into each case. “I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial,” he said, referring to defendants’ complaints that they received unfair jury trials in liberal Washington, D.C.