(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said he plans to sign pardons on Monday for participants in the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol by his supporters who attempted to overturn the 2020 election. “Tonight I’m going to be signing on the J6 hostages — pardons to get them out,” Trump said at a rally following his inauguration ceremony. “As soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office and will be signing pardons for a lot of people,” he said.
Nearly 1,600 people have been charged in connection with the assault on Congress by Trump supporters who were seeking to disrupt certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump repeatedly pledged during his election campaign to pardon those who took part in the attack, calling them “hostages,” “patriots,” and “political prisoners.”
Trump, whose first term as president ended under the cloud of the Capitol assault, has repeatedly played down the unprecedented violence of January 6, even going so far as to describe it as a “day of love.” More than 140 police officers were injured in hours of clashes with rioters wielding flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and other makeshift weapons along with Tasers and canisters of bear spray.
The assault on the Capitol followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race. He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.
Trump was charged by special counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But the case never made it to trial and was dropped under the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. According to the latest figures from the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, 1,583 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol siege, including 608 accused of assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers.
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