By Steve Neavling
Former President Donald Trump said he may pardon people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol if he gets elected to a second term as president.
“Another thing we’ll do — and so many people have been asking me about it — if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly,” Trump said at a rally in Conroe, Texas on Saturday. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.”
More than 700 people have been charged so far for allegedly participating in the riot. Among them are more than 150 people who were charged with assaulting police officers and 10 others charged with seditious conspiracy.
It wouldn’t be the first time Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters. Among them are Paul Manafort, his former campaign chief; Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist; Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser; and Roger Stone, his longtime friend.
In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the suggestion of pardons “inappropriate.”
“No, I don’t want to send any signal that it was okay to defile the Capitol,” Graham said adding that, “There are other groups with causes that may want to go down to the violent path that these people get pardoned.”
