OPINION: This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion
Many who were in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 were there in patriotic support of the U.S. Constitution and the freedom to gather and make support be known.
Others were there to cause confusion and mayhem and to intentionally throw the focus of that intended chaos onto others.
More than 700 people have been charged by the DOJ and the most serious charges, against only 11 members of a far-right militia, allege seditious conspiracy, the Guardian reported.
The committee members reviewing the events on Jan. 6, who are mostly Democrats, are not resolving the issues.
They are also not friendly to former President Donald Trump.
In January NBC News reported that House Minority Leader R-Calif Kevin McCarthy said that he wouldn’t comply with the panel’s request for an interview because the committee is “not conducting a legitimate investigation.”
At that time McCarthy stated that his phone conversation with President Trump during the riot was “very short” and that he was “advising the president what was happening here.”
“There is nothing I can provide the Jan. 6 committee for legislation of them moving forward.” McCarthy continued, “there is nothing in that realm. It is pure politics,” NBC News reported.
The 45th president has derided the committee for allegedly painting a false picture of the Jan. 6 incident and said the hearings were a Democratic “to change the narrative of a failing nation.”
Just the News reported that over the past week the Jan. 6 committee held primetime hearings to make its case that Trump pushed his election fraud claims despite knowing they were false in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
The committee, largely led by Democrats, includes two Republicans, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, both of whom voted to impeach Trump, noted Just The News.
The issue of potential pardons for Jan. 6 participants is not entirely new as the committee previously alleged that Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Scott Perry sought a pardon from Trump for potential wrongdoing on Jan. 6 which Perry called a “shameless and soulless lie,” Just The News reports.
During its hearing on Thursday, the panel showed evidence that conservative lawyer John Eastman, who advised Trump on a plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election, sought a pardon from the White House following the Jan.6 attack, the Hill reported.
In an email to Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, Eastman said,” I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that still works,” Time Magazine reports.
Time Magazine notes:
Legal experts say that such pardon requests could be construed as demonstrating a consciousness of guilt or recognition that they might have committed a crime by the members who sought them. Less damningly, their entreaties could also reflect concern that they feared unfairly becoming the targets of investigation or prosecution.
In February, Politico reported that, according to two unnamed people with direct knowledge of the matter, then President Trump had considered issuing a blanket pardon for all participants in the Jan. 6 riot.
Politico also noted, however, that an advisor to Trump at the time said that Trump’s interest in pardoning the participants was ‘more brainstorming and soliciting their {aides} opinion than deliberately adopting a plan.’
On Friday, former White House advisor Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty to contempt charges for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol Riot.
Navarro was the trade advisor for the then president.
CBS reports that the charges against Navarro stem from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the jan. 6 committee.
The committee had asked Navarro to testify and provide documents related to the Trump administration’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
After his arraignment, Navarro spoke to reporters about his treatment, CBS reported.
“I thought we could handle this matter in a civilized way dealing with constitutional issues,” he said. “Obviously being put in leg irons and having people want to put me in prison has changed matters.”
Navarro’s lawyer, John Rowley, said that they had “never seen anything as outrageous as what happened to Mr. Navarro.”
On the same day Navarro was experiencing such difficulties, former President Donald Trump said he would consider pardoning some defendants facing federal charges for their participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot should he return to office in 2024, Just the News reported.
The former president has previously stated that if he ran and won again he would “treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” including potentially giving pardons to defendants charged in the riot, the Hill reported.
Speaking to a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Nashville, Trump said “and if I become president someday, if I decide to do it, I will be looking at them very very seriously for pardons,” the Epoch Times reported.
“They’ve been treated very unfairly,” he said, without specifying individuals. The former president further decried the federal government’s treatment of those facing charges related to the incident, saying they had “their lives totally destroyed and [that they are] being treated worse than terrorists and murderers despite most being charged with parading through the Capitol.”
Source: The Republic Brief