More than 1,500 people charged with or convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress are now presumably hoping to win pardons and commutations that the now president-elect has repeatedly, if vaguely, promised to give many of them.
And they aren’t alone. Numerous people convicted since 2020 of federal crimes in prosecutions they claim were politically motivated seem to be positioning themselves to seek clemency when Donald Trump takes office in January.
On the campaign trail, Trump—who doled out various pardons to political allies ruing his first term—made frequent, though somewhat qualified, pledges to offer clemency to January 6 attackers. In a July exchange with ABC news anchor Rachel Scott, for instance, Trump said that he would “absolutely” pardon even rioters who were convicted of assaulting police officers. He then said he would do so “if they’re innocent,” but also said they had faced a “tough system.”
These statements have people charged with crimes on January 6 positioning themselves for pardons in the wake of Trump’s victory.
On Wednesday, Christopher Carnell, a man charged with entering the Capitol on January 6, asked a DC judge to postpone his case, citing Trump’s statements about pardoning January 6 attackers.
“Throughout his campaign, President-elect Trump has made multiple clemency promises to the January 6 defendants, particularly to those who were nonviolent participants,” Carnell’s lawyer wrote. “Mr. Carnell, who was an 18 year old nonviolent entrant into the Capitol on January 6, is expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office.”
This is one of what will likely be a deluge of similar filings. Judges are under no obligation to postpone proceedings based on such requests.
Trump might pardon not only rank-and-file January 6 rioters but high-profile far-right leaders convicted of helping to organize the attack.
Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who is serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the January 6 attack, is exploring a pardon, even as he continues to appeal his sentence, Tarrio’s lawyer, Nayib Hassan indicated to HuffPost. “We look forward to what the future holds, both in terms of the judicial process for our client and the broader political landscape under the new administration,” Hassan said.
Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder sentenced last year to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy due to his role in the attack, could also receive a Trump pardon, a prospect Rhodes’ ex-wife and son have said causes them fear for their safety due to what they allege is his past physical abuse. (Rhodes has denied abusing family members.)
Trump used the pardon process liberally while president to free war criminals, personal allies, campaign donors, people who could have acted as witnesses against him, and others—a use of clemency power that was unprecedented in American history and deeply corrupt.
In a second term, he may continue to pardon allies facing federal charges or seeking help with past convictions.
Former advisers Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, both of whom already served four-month prison terms for contempt of Congress after ignoring subpoenas from the House January 6 committee, may receive pardons aimed at clearing their names. (Trump pardoned Bannon in 2020 on charges that he defrauded donors to a charity that claimed to be raising private funds to help build Trump’s promised wall along the Mexican border, but he can’t help Bannon with pending New York state charges related to the same alleged scam.)
Bannon could also lobby Trump to pardon his former patron Guo Wengui, a Chinese real estate mogul convicted of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from Chinese diaspora followers of a movement Guo and Bannon launched in 2019. Guo used that movement and a network of Chinese-language media companies to spread disinformation aimed at helping Trump in 2020.
New York Mayor Eric Adams, facing charges for accepting bribes from Turkish interests, has ludicrously suggested that he was prosecuted by the Justice Department due to criticizing the Biden White House over immigration issues. That sounds like a bid for a pardon. Trump might prove amenable.
Then there is former Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), convicted last year of taking bribes from Egyptian agents in exchange for helping advance Cairo’s interests in the United States. Menendez previously persuaded Trump to pardon Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor accused of bribing Menendez in a case that ended in a mistrial, but who was also convicted of defrauding Medicare. Could Menendez join other corrupt Democrats Trump pardoned, like former Detroit Mayor Kendrick Meek and ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich? Don’t rule it out.
One person Trump probably won’t have to pardon is himself. The Justice Department “is evaluating how to wind down the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump before he takes office to comply with longstanding department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted,” NBC News’ Ken Dilanian reported Wednesday. That would relieve Trump of having to take the unprecedented and controversial step of telling DOJ to drop charges into himself.
