Vice President-elect JD Vance has provided a little insight into what he calls the “simple” process that President-elect Donald Trump is planning to use in order to decide which January 6 defendants receive pardons once the pair takes office, suggesting that individuals who were convicted of non-violent crimes will be the only recipients of clemency. Sounds pretty reasonable. Individuals who committed violent crimes are unstable and probably dangerous to release back into society at this time. However, I don’t think the number of these kind of convicts is very high. The vast majority were guilty of non-violent crimes, so a lot of pardons are coming soon.
via Daily Wire:
With a little more than a week before Inauguration Day, Vance took aim at the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” with anchor Shannon Bream.
“January 6th pardons: President Trump says there’s a process. Where is the line drawn? And who will and wouldn’t be considered for a pardon?” Bream asked the incoming vice president.
WATCH: @JDVance lays out President-elect Trump’s pardon process for January 6th participants. Tune in tomorrow for the rest of Shannon's exclusive interview with Vice President-elect JD Vance. pic.twitter.com/RvqXrL6rO3
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) January 11, 2025
“I think it’s very simple,” Vance responded to the question. “Look, if you protested peacefully on January the 6th, and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
He went on to add, “And there’s a little bit of a gray area there. But we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law. And there are a lot of people, we think in the wake of January the 6th, who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that.”
More than 1,500 people have been prosecuted in connection to the U.S. Capitol riot four years ago, according to the DOJ. Many of the defendants pleaded guilty or were found guilty, and several hundred of them were sentenced to prison. The Associated Press says hundreds of defendants “who did not engage in destruction or violence were charged only with misdemeanor offenses for entering the Capitol illegally,” while others faced more serious charges related to violence or conspiracy.
The president-elect told the folks at NBC News back in December that his team was “looking at” the potential for pardoning Jan. 6 defendants on the very first day of his administration.
“Those people have suffered long and hard,” Trump remarked on the subject. However, he also stated that “there may be some exceptions” when handing out the pardons.
“Last week, a federal appeals court gave Garland permission to release now-former special counsel Jack Smith’s report volume on his 2020 election interference investigation into Trump, though it remained unclear as of press time whether such a disclosure will ultimately get blocked,” the Daily Wire said.
At the end of the day, just like Trump, the vast majority of the J6 defendants were victims of lawfare. Radical leftists wanted to use them to help craft a narrative that Trump supporters are domestic terrorists and a threat to our national security. It was a means of trying to prevent the president-elect from running for office again. The strategy failed. Miserably.
And next week, we’ll witness the man, the myth, and the legend getting sworn into the Oval Office for a second term.