For months, many Republicans on Capitol Hill said Donald Trump should only pardon the nonviolent offenders of the Jan. 6 attack. Everyone else, they said, should be on a “case-by-case basis.” Instead, Trump pardoned almost everyone — even the mob’s most notorious instigators, including those who assaulted law enforcement with weapons, threatened to kill elected officials and were charged with “seditious conspiracy.”
Hours after the mass pardon on Tuesday, Republican lawmakers were ready with a novel defense of Trump’s actions: It’s Joe Biden’s fault.
“I would like to have seen a case-by-case process,” Sen. Kevin Cramer told NOTUS. “But then I think, when President Biden pardoned the Jan. 6 committee for whatever reason and his entire family for whatever reason, suddenly it looks like there’s a lot of … a lot to be concerned about.”
Asked whether they were comfortable with the extent of Trump’s pardons, House and Senate Republicans overwhelmingly got in line and had explanations prepared for their change in heart. Biden’s sweeping pardons for his family and other possible Trump targets set the precedent, several Republicans told NOTUS. Trump merely followed suit. Others compared Jan. 6 rioters to Black Lives Matter protesters.
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In the end, they said, wouldn’t it just be nice to move on from all of it.
“It’s not ideal, but I’m not overly concerned about it either,” Cramer said. “I think that the gift is that it’s all behind us now, we can stop talking about it.”
The president is trying to “close out a terrible chapter in our history through the pardon process,” Rep. Darrell Issa, a senior lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, said.
“The president’s justification was well-thought-out, and I agree with it. Evidence was destroyed, making it impossible for them to get fair appeals,” he said, repeating a baseless allegation Trump has made about the Jan. 6 investigations. “So it was, it was well reasoned. And you know, I hadn’t considered that portion of it.”
Last week, Issa told NOTUS that those who “committed a serious crime knowingly and willfully” shouldn’t be offered a pardon.
“There was at least one individual that came with wire ties and other instruments that clearly indicate that he came to do something that is illegal with intent,” he said then.
Sen. Ron Johnson told NOTUS on Monday that “violent criminals” who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 shouldn’t be pardoned. On Tuesday, he said that there’s been an “enormous miscarriage of justice” and that he’s “highly sympathetic” toward the vast majority of Jan. 6 pardons.
Rep. Jim Jordan, another Republican who had previously called for a case-by-case review of the Jan. 6 defendants’ charges, ultimately concluded that Trump simply did what he said he would do.
“President Trump told us he was going to do it. He did what he said, unlike Joe Biden,” Jordan said. “President Trump said, ‘I’m going to pardon Jan. 6 defendants,’ and he did. So, I sort of like the guy who sticks with his word.”
As for these pardons going to people who assaulted law enforcement officers, Jordan pointed fingers at Democrats for supporting Black Lives Matter protesters.
“Compared to the folks who did, in some cases, violent things against law enforcement, Kamala Harris is raising money to bail them out of jail. They’re not spending time in solitary confinement like these guys did, so I think that’s a huge distinction,” he said.
Sen. Roger Marshall chastised reporters for even asking about Trump’s pardons.
“We should be focused on why did he pardon Anthony Fauci,” Marshall said, suggesting without evidence that “a million people died, partially, because of his work.”
And Sen. Ted Cruz appeared to insinuate that the riots were a nonviolent exercise of First Amendment rights.
“I think the Biden administration abused its power, targeting people for peaceful speech,” Cruz told NOTUS. “I’m glad that President Trump corrected that abuse of power.”
A minority of the Republican lawmakers NOTUS interviewed criticized Trump’s sweeping Jan. 6 pardons. Sen. Thom Tillis called it an “honest disagreement” between himself and Trump on the severity of assaulting law enforcement. Sen. Lisa Murkowski told NOTUS she was “disappointed” by Trump’s approach. And Sen. Bill Cassidy said he was a big “back the blue guy” and that “it’s wrong to assault anybody, but certainly to assault an officer.”
Sen. Susan Collins also criticized Trump’s pardons, but not without knocking Biden for his clemency orders in the same statement, calling it a “terrible week for our justice system.”
“I do not support pardons given to people who engaged in violence on Jan. 6, including assaulting police officers or breaking windows to get into the Capitol, for example,” Collins said in a statement. “I also do not agree with President Biden’s recent clemency decisions including commuting the sentences of convicted murderers … in the final hours of his presidency.”
Ultimately, those senators are the exception.
“Nobody’s been treated worse than these people,” Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters of the Jan. 6 rioters.
“Some of these people have been in jail for a long time,” he said. “Jan. 6 was a long time ago, and they’ve been in jail with their due process rights taken away and President Trump is right when he does that.”
Moreno wasn’t in the building on Jan. 6. Cramer, who was, sounded ready to move on.
“It seemed much more appropriate for Donald Trump to join him in just sort of clearing the entire deck, and we can move forward now,” Cramer continued when asked about his personal experience with Jan. 6. “I was there. I saw it. It was more than a rowdy tour group. Certainly wasn’t what a lot of people made it out to be.”
And then there was House Speaker Mike Johnson. He hadn’t looked at Trump’s pardons as of Tuesday evening.
“I haven’t had an opportunity to review that because I’ve been so busy,” Johnson said.
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John T. Seward, Mark Alfred and Torrence Banks are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.
Margaret Manto and Emily Kennard, NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows, contributed to this report.
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