Why Pardoning All J6ers Was the Right Call

“What a foolish thing to do.” That was my initial reaction to the J6 pardon and commutations that included ALL related charges and cases. Why invite unnecessary backlash and scorn? Pardon the easy ones and table the rest for a later date. That would have been the right political move. Everyone wins. The right gets justice, and the left retains a half pound of their pound of flesh.

I heard JD Vance say essentially the same thing last week. Smart guy. Obviously, violent offenders shouldn’t be pardoned. But they were. Why is that? Principle. They were pardoned on principle and they should have been. All of them.

I’ve watched hours of footage–cellphones, body cams, CCTV…footage not just from different locations or angles but different perspectives and bias. Regardless the recording or the recorder, they all show it was a shameful mess that day. January 6th was the perfect storm of poor planning, poor communication, and crowds of people. Some were freedom-loving, God-fearing, patriots. Some were simply caught in a situation that was descending into chaos and amidst the fog of C2 canisters, noise, and adrenaline…reacted and reacted poorly. But some were hooligans. No one was forced to break the first windows at the capital. No one was forced to remove the signs or barriers that may have kept other wiser people away. Not every and maybe not any, punch thrown can be attributed to Antifa incognitos or federal plants.

There was destruction. There was violence. There was death that day. Did you know that four protesters died that day? Two from heart attacks, one woman was believed to be trampled but an overdose was ruled the cause of death, and Ashli Babbit was shot. Five police officers died shortly after January 6th–Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes later that night and four officers committed suicide in the days and months following. Some were ruled related to duty and some were not. Many more were injured, on both sides.

Tragedy and trauma. You can see from the body cam footage that officers felt overwhelmed, helpless, fearful, and abandoned by their superiors. You can see officers trying their best to avoid hurting innocent people while trying to maintain the boundary they had been asked to keep. You can see protesters following a crowd, unaware of what had happened just prior to their arrival be fired upon by officers with non-lethal weapons. You can see protesters growing confrontational, reckless, and dangerous to themselves and others. It all happened. The innocent and guilty, the defenders and the delinquents, the curious and the questioners…all collided at the capitol.

So how do you pardon the whole lot on principle? Due process.

Because the law extends to innocent law-breakers and even the intentionally lawless. No one is to be above or beneath the law, not even J6ers. But under Biden’s corrupt DOJ, they absolutely were.

Donald Trump pardoned them all because their rights to due process had been violated.

They were not allowed speedy trials. Some J6 defendants have still not gone to trial. Some were incarcerated 2-3 years without a trial. Some were incarcerated months or years before charges were ever filed.

They were not allowed public trials. There was no accountability or transparency allowed, no cameras…no witnesses to the miscarriages of justice that went on.

They were not allowed changes of venue, though for federal cases that is frequently done. They were required to travel back and forth to DC to appear before handpicked judges.

They did not get access to attorneys of choice or even appointed attorneys for time necessary to mount a defense.

They did not get access to their families for basic proof of life or well-check visits. Do you remember Marjorie Taylor Greene outside the “DC Gulag” up in arms?? She was up in arms because even senators and congressmen were being denied access to their constituents being held.

They were not allowed to give testimony in their own defense. Read that again. Most defendants were refused the opportunity to give any testimony on the stand.

They were not given access to the evidence used against them. Perjured testimony was allowed against them. Mark my words, perjured testimony was given by officers in court, but also by Trump staffers in hearings, and Kamala Harris on camera.

They were uniformly excessively charged and excessively sentenced. Misdemeanors with fines became sixty months in prison. All plea deals had non-negotiable confessions attached that grossly mischaracterized the facts of each case.

The full weight and power of the federal government was launched against its own citizens to purposely destroy their lives and credibility, forever. And it was not done based on the severity of their crime or even the commission of a crime but because they were the opposition to the party in power. This wasn’t correction. It was crushing. It was establishing deterrence for God knows what else was to come.

And all of this was done after the left allowed radicals to create a new and noble form of objection across our land…the riot. The left rioted, looted, occupied, and burned down buildings, businesses, and entire blocks while democrats applauded their efforts and excused their behavior. Even J6 was not Seattle, or Wisconsin, or Minnesota. What did they think would happen when you made rioting a valid form of civic participation?

When the whole system is corrupt, even the innocent are guilty and the remedy requires even the guilty be declared innocent. This is the cost of operating without integrity. Trump’s pardon, and I say this as someone bound to absolutes over populism, was highly principled even if not highly popular. There will be inquiries and reports coming out in the future to be sure, and I pray they do shed light on the miscarriage of justice that happened at the capitol and the four years after it. It can never happen again.

 

3 Comments

  1. Norma Parker on January 29, 2025 at 3:16 AM

    My only real disagreement with one fact stated in your article is the death of Rosanne
    Boyland. She is the one you mentioned was listed as an overdose on that day. When watching the videos released by the Epoch Times, aired publicly, Ms. Boyland is seen lying unconscious on the ground being beaten with a stick by a Metro policewoman. The stick was supposedly taken from a J6 protester. When the policewoman got tired of beating on an unresponsive Rosanne Boyland, she stepped aside and allowed bystanders to drag her away from the cop. The bystanders unsuccessfully performed CPR on her.. The coroner later declared Ms. Boyland died from an overdose of Adderall. A physician, who was part
    of the Epoch Times narration said Ms. Boyland would have had to take 75 times her normal dose to OD on Adderall. I see this as a cover up. I want everyone to know that Rosanne Boyland was not an overdose victim, but the victim of an overzealous policewoman, who didn’t know when to stop.

    • sbhuggy110578 on January 29, 2025 at 8:31 PM

      Wow! Thank you for this correction!

  2. Camille Piland on January 29, 2025 at 5:40 AM

    As you usual, you nailed it!

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