The Freedom From Religion Foundation condemns as unconscionable President Trump’s blanket pardon of the nearly 1,600 defendants — whom he dubbed “hostages” and “patriots” — involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Trump’s proclamation grants “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Trump has continually referred to Jan. 6 as “a day of love.”
The proclamation also commutes the sentences of 14 individuals, including Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, who was serving an 18-year sentence. Both Rhodes and Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, who was serving a 22-year sentence, were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty issued a damning report, “Christian Nationalism and the Jan. 6, 2021, Insurrection,” documenting the role this ideology played in fomenting the insurrection, including a “Jericho March” in the run-up, and rampant evidence of white Christian nationalist symbols, signage, prayers and adherents present at the insurrection. The mob of tens of thousands of Trump supporters, some seeking to hang House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, were incited by Trump to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power by halting the legal certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election.
Among the many pardoned were those who inflicted injuries on 140 police officers defending the Capitol and its occupants from the mob during hours of hand-to-hand combat. One officer, Brian Sicknick, suffered two strokes the day after the attack and died. Four D.C. police officers hurt in the riots later took their own lives. Capitol and city police were attacked with baseball bats, swords, axes, knives and improvised weapons such as flagpoles and bike racks. Some were sprayed with chemicals. Michael Fanone was beaten, burned and electrically shocked, suffering a heart attack, concussion and traumatic brain injury. Aquilino Gonell, then a sergeant in the Capitol Police, has needed multiple surgeries, years of rehab and treatment for post-traumatic stress. Gonell wrote in a recent guest essay for the New York Times, “Although I left the Capitol Police force, I remain haunted by that day. Now Mr. Trump’s promised actions could erase the justice we’ve risked everything for.”
Biden, as one of his last presidential acts, “pardoned” the Jan. 6 House committee members, even Gonell and Fanone, who testified before it, and some others Trump had promised to prosecute retributively.
Of the more than 1,500 individuals charged with crimes related to the Capitol putsch, almost 1,300 have pleaded guilty or been convicted, and more than 1,000 have been sentenced. Approximately two-thirds received sentences ranging from imprisonment of several days to 22 years, according to the Associated Press. About 900 defendants were charged with misdemeanors — meaning they typically trespassed in the Capitol but weren’t involved in violence or destruction. Another 600 defendants, including almost 200 carrying weapons, were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding police, most of them inflicting serious bodily harm upon police.
Most convicted of offenses on Jan. 6 had pleaded guilty, with only 261 convicted in trials, and of those, only one fully acquitted. Of almost 500 cases still pending, 180 cases involved felonious assault or impeding police.
Defendant Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” who invaded the Senate chambers to offer a prayer to Jesus, had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding. At the time of his 2021 sentencing to 41 months in prison, he admitted, “I have no excuses. No excuses. My behavior is indefensible.”
The pardons appear to follow an authoritarian playbook that can only encourage white supremacist, Christian nationalist and paramilitary movements, which experienced growth last year, including 600 incidents of threats and harassment targeting local governmental or school board officials.
Unfortunately, the president’s blanket pardons signal that the conduct of the Jan. 6 criminals and defendants was defensible, even heroic. As the wounded sergeant Aquilino Gonell observed, if Trump had wanted to heal our divided nation, he’d let their convictions stand.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national association of 40,000 members whose purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
