Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said Sunday on Fox News that the incoming administration’s plan for Jan. 6 pardons will depend on whether the imprisoned protesters were violent.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecuted over 1,200 individuals from nearly all 50 states in connection with the attack on the Capitol. On “Fox News Sunday,” host Shannon Bream questioned Vance on where the “line” will be drawn when it comes to pardoning those punished for the riot.
“I think it’s very simple. Look, if you protested peacefully on January the 6th and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned,” Vance said.
“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned. There’s a little bit of a gray area there, but we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law,” Vance added. “There are a lot of people we think, in the wake of January the 6th who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that.”
Video footage from the day shows a mix of people involved in the incident, with some getting into altercations with Capitol police, while others could be seen walking peacefully through the building.
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In March 2024, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel found that some Jan. 6 defendants had their sentences wrongly lengthened, siding with Jan. 6 defendant Larry Brock, who had been sentenced in 2023 to two years in prison for obstructing an official proceeding. While Biden’s DOJ attempted to argue that a sentence enhancement for those who disrupt judicial proceedings should also apply to those who disrupted Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election, the panel pushed back, saying the judges couldn’t simply label their crimes as “interference with the administration of justice.”
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly discussed his thoughts regarding the pardons, telling NBC’s Kristen Welker in December how he plans to look at “individual cases” for those who were charged in the Jan. 6 attack. Prior to his most recent discussion, Trump told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins in May 2023 that he would plan to pardon a “large portion” of those federally charged, noting how he would look at the cases when asked about pardoning four Proud Boys members who were charged.
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