Sen. Lindsey Graham said it was a “mistake” to pardon those who were violent participants of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“Number one, he had the legal authority to do it. But I fear that you will get more violence,” Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently I think was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do,” he said.
Mr. Graham said the blanket pardon of Jan. 6 protesters came as no surprise because it’s what he said he would do on the campaign trail.
“You know, [former President] Biden promised not to pardon his family; he did. Trump said, ‘I’m going to pardon these people.’ So the fact that he did it is no surprise,” he said. “But I’ll be consistent here. I don’t like the idea of bailing people out of jail or pardoning people who burn down cities and beat up cops, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat.”
He also noted that law enforcement “didn’t like” Mr. Trump’s decision.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday Mr. Graham said Mr. Trump pardoning those who attacked police officers sends “the wrong signal to the public at large.”
“And it’s not what you want to do to protect cops,” he said.
He noted during his appearance on both Sunday shows that Mr. Biden pardoned a large number of people, including family members, and commuted the sentence of a man who killed two FBI agents.
He said that if large numbers of pardons and pardons for those who have attacked police officers continues, then something might have to be done about presidential pardon power.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it on either side. And I think the public doesn’t like it either,” he said on “State of the Union.” “So if this continues, if this is the norm, there may be an effort to rein in the pardon power of the president as an institution.”
When asked if he had discussed this with Mr. Trump, Mr. Graham said he hadn’t, but that he had previously expressed to the president that he didn’t support pardoning those who attacked officers.
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump granted roughly 1,500 pardons for those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.