A little over a year ago, former President Joe Biden took to the stage in Blue Bell, PA, where he boasted that almost 1,000 January 6 protesters were sentenced to over 840 years in prison. To an audience that applauded.
Since January 6, 2021, the Biden administration made it their sole focus to find any American who so much as thought about the Capitol Building that day and throw them in prison for as long as possible.
Yesterday, Donald Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of, more than 1,500 January 6 defendants. As I aruged here and here, he was right to do so.
In an interview on Fox News, Jonathan Turley explains exactly why this was the right move:
Professor Jonathan Turley explained to Fox News today his own reasoning for pardoning January 6 protesters, as President Trump did yesterday.
— Paul Villarreal (AKA Vince Manfeld) (@AureliusStoic1) January 21, 2025
"Well the Department of Justice really made the case for these pardons...the Justice Department unleashed what one of its top lawyers… pic.twitter.com/dMk4Ap79Hd
I agree with this. The abuses and government overreach in the prosecution of January 6 Defendants -- coupled with the complete lack of consequences for almost all of the BLM/Antifa rioters who burned several cities to the ground in 2020 -- cried out for justice.
But I'm not here to necessarily debate whether or not the substance of Trump's pardons is or is not good. I've already made my views clear on that.
Within 48 hours of being inaugurated, Donald Trump pardoned the January 6 Defendants as well as Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was convicted to two life sentences following his arrest in 2013 for creating and running Silk Road, a darknet market website.
Ross Ulbricht has been freed by President Trump with a full pardon! Thank you for keeping your word to me and others who have been advocating for Ross’ freedom, Mr. President! #freeRoss pic.twitter.com/wOJVFX1DaA
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 22, 2025
Compare Trump to Joe Biden's pardons. The first round of pardons, clemencies, and commutations hit on December 12 and included a Pennsylvania judge who sentenced children to private prisons for financial gain and a doctor who gave patients watered-down chemotherapy while defrauding Medicare.
Eleven days later, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 death row inmates. He called it part of his effort to '[ensure] a fair and effective justice system. One of those inmates is Jorge Avila-Torrez who strangled 20-year-old Amanda Snell in her Arlington, VA, apartment back in 2009.
On the morning of his last day in office, Biden preemptively pardoned Gen. Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, and members of the January 6 Committee. He also commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier. Peltier killed two FBI agents in Virginia in 1975.
Fifteen minutes before he was replaced, Biden pardoned several of his own family members.
And, no, I did not forget that Joe pardoned his son, Hunter.
I'm also not here to debate Joe Biden's blatant corruption or the validity of his pardons.
I'm here to give Donald Trump kudos for doing pardons the proper way. Until Democrats like Bill Clinton sold pardons and Joe Biden started handing out pardons like candy at Halloween, the purpose of a pardon was to correct a miscarriage of justice. To right a grievous wrong.
So why then did Joe Biden wait until the literally eleventh hour to do so? Why did Joe Biden enjoy the power of the presidential pardon for four years and never once bother to exercise that power until it was no longer politically damaging to him?
Joe Biden clearly felt that the thousands of men and women to whom he issued pardons and commutations had been harmed by our justice system and -- to the best of my knowledge -- they were all embedded in that justice system by the time Joe Biden took the oath of office in January 2021.
Perhaps Joe Biden (or, let's be real, the handlers running his administration) didn't really think these inmates were facing injustice. Perhaps this was all political performative art.
A remedy to this would be to amend those powers to limit them to the first two years of a president's term, forcing their hand to act on pardons or miss the window of opportunity. It's an argument worth considering, and it's because the Democratic Party so grossly abused the pardon power during Joe Biden's tenure.
Love him or hate him, at least Donald Trump had the spine to not only vow on the campaign trail that he would issue those pardons but then actually issue those pardons on his first days in office. He believed the January 6 Defendants and Ross Ulbricht were victims of an overzealous justice system and remedied that problem.
Political consequences be damned.
