Trump Doubles Down On Pardoning Jan. 6 Rioters

The GOP presidential nominee initially dodged the question before saying he would “absolutely” pardon rioters who have been convicted “if they are innocent.”

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday doubled down on his promise to pardon those arrested for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including those who violently attacked police officers, if he is elected in November.

Near the end of a 35-minute interview at the annual National Association of Black Journalists conference, ABC News senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott pressed Trump on comments he’s made pledging to vacate the convictions of some 1,400 of his supporters who took part in the attempted insurrection.

“You called yourself the candidate of ‘law and order,’” Scott said. “When Time magazine asked you if you would consider pardoning all the rioters, you said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ You called them ‘patriots.’ One hundred and forty police officers were assaulted that day. Their injuries included broken bones, at least one officer lost an eye, one had two cracked ribs, two smashed spinal discs, another had a stroke. Were the people who assaulted those 140 officers, including those I just mentioned, ‘patriots’ who deserved pardons?”

The former president dodged the question, talking instead about recent pro-Palestine protests in Washington, D.C.

“Let me bring it back to modern day, like about five days ago. We had an attack on the Capitol, a horrible attack on the Capitol,” Trump said. “You saw the people that were protesting and spraying these incredible monuments, all this magnificent limestone and granite, with red paint, red spray paint, that will never actually come off, especially in the limestone — I’m a builder, I know about this stuff, you’ll see it in a hundred years from now. They viciously attacked our government. They fought with police. They fought with them much more openly than I saw on January 6. What’s going to happen to those people?”