Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sharply criticized President Trump for granting blanket pardons to nearly all defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Schiff, a former member of the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol, called the move a “bizarre display of power” in an interview with MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
“It is obscene. It is a grotesque demonstration of his new authority as president to pardon 15 to 1,600 people, including those responsible for violent attacks on law enforcement.
“It’s a really terrible way to start, but it’s not an amazing way to start a new government,” he added.
President Trump briefly said Monday night that he had granted “full, complete and unconditional pardons” to about 1,500 rioters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. There are a total of 1,583 indicted defendants.
“What they did to these people is outrageous,” Trump said as he signed various orders from the Oval Office.
Trump also commuted the sentences of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members accused of plotting to forcibly stop the peaceful transfer of power in 2020. However, former Proud Boys National Assembly Speaker Enrique Tarrio, who is serving a 22-year prison sentence, the longest terrorism-related sentence, was granted a pardon.
Regarding Tarrio’s pardon, Schiff said, “Sadly, it is rather appropriate that one of his first acts in office is to pardon such a white nationalist leader.”
“I think pardoning him is very symbolic of where the president is coming from. To me, it harkens back to his comments about the Proud Boys a few years ago, when he said to take a step back and wait,” Schiff said, paraphrasing Trump.
Schiff added, “Well, I think he finally turned their backs on them.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), another former member of the House January 6 Committee, told CNN on Monday that the new Trump administration “has a lot of work to do” about the pardons granted to the January 6 defendants. “he said.
“Why were they forgiven? “That’s my question.” Raskin asked CNN host Kaitlan Collins.
“I mean, were they innocent? No one claims that. Were you denied due process? No one claims that. So are they reformed and rehabilitated so that they are no longer a threat to democracy and a threat to society? Or was he pardoned simply because he was a political soldier supporting Donald Trump when he incited an insurrection against the government?” He added:
The pardon clears the way for hundreds of his supporters to be released from prison in the coming days, some of whom were serving years in prison for violent attacks on law enforcement that day.
This came just hours after President Biden issued preemptive pardons to members and staffers of the House Select Committee on January 6, including Schiff and Raskin, just 11 hours after his inauguration.
