BEG YOUR PARDON

Key GOP Senators Rebuke Trump Over His Jan. 6 Pardons

‘I do not support pardons given to people who engaged in violence on January 6,′ Sen. Collins said.

Prominent GOP senators on Tuesday condemned President Trump’s sweeping clemency for violent Jan. 6 convicts who destroyed the Capitol and attacked police officers.

“I do not support pardons given to people who engaged in violence on January 6, including assaulting police officers, or breaking windows to get into the Capitol,” Sen. Susan Collins said in a statement.

The small faction of dissenters included former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who pointed to Vice President JD Vance’s remarks earlier this month that violent criminals “obviously” should not be pardoned.

“Well, I think I agree with the vice president,” McConnell told Semafor.

Collins that “some Americans were caught up in the crowd on January 6 and may well deserve the clemency President Trump has given.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict Trump of impeachment in 2021, seconded Collins' sentiment. He told CNN he’s a “back-the-blue guy” and feels “people who assault police officers—if they do the crime, they should do the time.”

“There is a great difference between violent crimes and non-violent crimes,” Collins added. “Violence must never be tolerated in America.”

TIT FOR TAT

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Juliegrace Brufke

Trump—shortly after being sworn in on Monday—moved to free more than 1,500 people who were charged with crimes related to the storming of the Capitol in an effort to derail the certification of the 2020 election. Some of them violently beat police officers, including with a fire extinguisher and metal batons.

Republican criticism of his actions mark the first split between major Republican players in the Senate and the president.

“I don’t think that the approach of a blanket pardon that includes those who caused harm, physical harm, to our police officers, to others that resulted in violence, I’m disappointed to see that. And I do fear the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski told CNN.

But McConnell, Collins, Murkowski and Cassidy represented a small minority of lawmakers voicing opposition to Trump’s blanket pardons for the MAGA supporters who he invited to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to “fight like hell.”

“100 percent, I’m for the ‘pardon everyone,’” Sen. Tommy Tuberville told ABC News. “They’ve been there long enough. Most of them hadn’t been charged with anything.”

As for the unruly and deadly attacks on police officers, which played out live on TV and were captured in videotaped footage, Tuberville said, “I don’t believe it because I didn’t see it. Now, if I see it, I would believe it, but I didn’t see in that video.”

Collins noted that while she takes issue with Trump’s Jan. 6-related pardons, she also opposed former President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon members of his family, and individuals convicted of violent crimes.

Trump’s pardons came shortly after Biden opted to issue eleventh-hour preemptive pardons for lawmakers, staff and witnesses that served on the Jan. 6 select committee, which sparked an uproar from top Trump allies in Congress.

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Juliegrace BrufkeSenior Political Correspondent

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