Trump Pardons the Jan. 6 Cop Beaters - WSJ Editorial
(snip)
This is a rotten message from a President about political violence done on his behalf, and it’s a bait and switch. Asked about Jan. 6 pardons in late November, Mr. Trump projected caution. “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” he said. “We’re going to look at each individual case.” Taking cues from the boss, last week Vice President JD Vance drew a clear line: “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
(snip)
Out of roughly 1,600 cases filed by the feds, more than a third included accusations of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement.” The U.S. Attorney’s office said it declined “hundreds” of prosecutions against people whose only offense was entering restricted grounds near the Capitol. Of the 1,100 sentences handed down by this year, more than a third didn’t involve prison time. The rioters who did get jail often were charged with brutal violence, including:
• Daniel Joseph “DJ” Rodriguez, sentenced to 151 months, who can be seen on video, federal prosecutors said, deploying an “electroshock weapon” against a policeman who was dragged out of the defensive line, by “plunging it into the officer’s neck.” The night before, he promised in a MAGA chat group: “There will be blood.”
(snip)
• Ronald Colton McAbee, 70 months, hit a cop while wearing “reinforced brass knuckle gloves,” and he held one down on the ground as “other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds,” causing a concussion.
There are more like this, which everyone understood on Jan. 6 and shortly afterward. “There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill,” one GOP official tweeted. “This is 3rd world style anti-American anarchy.” That was Marco Rubio, now Mr. Trump’s Secretary of State. He was right. What happened that day is a stain on Mr. Trump’s legacy. By setting free the cop beaters, the President adds another.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-pardons-jan-6-capitol-rioters-police-gop-258a4a6e?st=otqiut&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
free
= new reply since forum marked as read
