Today, I signed a pardon for all the January 6th persons who entered the Capitol or who were charged in connection thereof. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched them being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like an intent to actually overturn an election; said persons were demonstrating and in fact were egged on by both FBI agents and those in their employ, such persons are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for walking in a government building. It is clear that the January 6ers were treated differently when compared with myriad others who did identical things, including those who obstructed the confirmation hearings for Justice Kavanaugh and some went further than waving signs -- they presented knowingly-false testimony in an attempt to irrevocably corrupt his nomination process.
The charges in these cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated two unlawful and unwarranted impeachments and used those lies to oppose my election, then planted agents in the crowd to deliberately incite a riot. When that was unsuccessful they intentionally opened the doors from the inside -- doors that could not be forced from the outside without heavy machinery -- and waved the protestors in to manufacture the pretext for these alleged offenses. Then, the January 6th committee deliberately and with malice aforethought withheld exculpatory evidence, hid the DOJs and FBIs involvement in inciting said events, failed to identify the person or persons in their employ who clearly opened the doors to the Capitol and invited members of the public inside – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had justice prevailed a misdemeanor trespassing charge might have been appropriate in some cases, but certainly not felony charges and convictions, never mind the attempted misapplication of Sarbanes-Oxley to this circumstance, a deliberate and outrageous act wildly outside the remit of the Statute and ultimately turned back by the courts.
No reasonable person who looks at the facts of the Jan 6th cases can reach any other conclusion than that these individuals were singled out only because they were supporters of my campaign, baited deliberately and then framed – and that is wrong. These political, tin-pot dictatorial abuses of power have continued for four years and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.
For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a President would come to this decision.
Oh, one is not good for the other?
The Hell it isn't.
January 20th at 12:01 PM is when this hammer must come down.