'Different sort of creature': Ex-US atty says Trump expects one thing from pardoned J6ers
When President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025, he's promised to issue pardons to participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection within minutes. Now, one former federal prosecutor is arguing that Trump may be expecting something in return for putting ink on pardon paperwork.
In a recent MSNBC interview with "Velshi" guest host Charles Coleman Jr., former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance argued that the January 6 pardons are a "different sort of creature" in comparison to the clemency that outgoing President Joe Biden announced earlier this week. She noted that "there are very strong standards that have been used for evaluating these cases," specifically whether a pardon recipient would "pose a threat" to their community if freed.
"That's the issue that Donald Trump seems to be willing to set aside here," Vance said. "These are not people who have shown remorse. These are not people who have re-integrated with their communities."
READ MORE: Nearly all J6 defendants Trump wants to pardon assaulted police officers: security experts
"These are people who, in many cases, continue to avow their support for Donald Trump, and who, if released, would add to his base, would add to his loyal level of followers and communities, which is clearly what these pardons are all about," she added.
While Biden granted 39 pardons and commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 other federal inmates (with the promise of more to come before he leaves office), Trump may pardon the roughly 1,100 convicted participants in the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol — 600 of whom have served prison sentences ranging from a few days to 22 years. And as New York University's Just Security reported earlier this year, many of those potential pardon recipients include defendants who have been convicted and are currently serving time for attacking U.S. Capitol police officers.
Nearly 1,600 people have been charged in connection with the insurrection. Even if all of them were pardoned, Politico reported that there would still be lengthy public documentation of their crime and their subsequent pardon, which could hurt defendants' job prospects during the background check process.
"There’s a consequence of having a judgment in the case, in the age of electronic databases,” attorney William Shipley told Politico. “When it is entered as a conviction and sentence in a particular case, it’s dragged out into all kinds of publicly available databases, the kind you’re going to use for doing background checks of employment... And if that conviction’s not there, it doesn’t appear on someone’s background check. So there’s a real-world consequence.”
READ MORE: GOP reps invite J6 rioter who stormed the Capitol with knife and tactical vest to inauguration
Watch the video of Vance's comments below, or by clicking this link.
