Accused of "abandonment of duty" by the commission that investigated January 6th, for failing to act for hours while a mob assaulted the Capitol, Donald Trump is about to return to the power he tried to maintain at all costs.
When thousands of his supporters stormed the Capitol in 2021, Trump refused to condemn their actions despite the numerous deaths and destruction caused. Now that he is preparing to be President again, he has said he will pardon the invaders who have been convicted of their crimes, including secession. Several of them face sentences of more than 15 years in prison.
"It's going to start right away," Trump said in an interview with Time magazine, in reference to pardoning the robbers. This promise aligns with the way the President-elect spoke about the assailants during the campaign, calling them "political prisoners", "great patriots", "hostages" and "victims".
He even organized several fundraisers for the defendants' expenses and even made donations to these funds.
At a rally in Waco, Texas in March 2023, he opened the event with the song "Justice for All", which was recorded over the phone by the prison's twenty-man convict group J6 Prison Choir. Later, in Ohio, Trump gave a kind of flag salute while in the spotlight he asked people to stand up "for the horribly and unfairly treated hostages of January 6th."
In the four years since the attack, the largest investigation in FBI history has culminated in nearly 1,500 indictments, 1,100 convictions and 600 prison sentences. The highest sentence was 22 years for Enrique Tarrio, leader of the far-right group Proud Boys, for secessionist conspiracy.
In August, the Washington Attorney General's Office took stock of the investigation, showing that there are still 126 defendants awaiting trial.
Around 140 police officers were violently attacked that day, including with 'sprays' and iron bars.
But in October, at an event broadcast on the Hispanic television network Univison, Trump said January 6 was "a day of love" and denied that there were any weapons that day, although several were seized.
"We didn't have guns. The others had guns, but we didn't. And when I say we, it's the people who marched."
The president-elect's stance has become progressively more sympathetic in favor of the robbers. On the day of the robbery, she said on video that she loved them and felt their pain, but that they should go home in peace. The next day, he promised that whoever had broken the law would pay.
However, it didn't take long for him to show solidarity with the robbers' actions again, something that also happened with Republican legislators. Even those who went into hiding the same day, like Andrew Clyde, later claimed that the invasion was peaceful and comprised only of tourists.
In August 2023, a special grand jury indicted Donald Trump for conspiracy to defraud the United States, based on special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the events of January 6. This case, which was going to trial, was dismissed due to Trump's victory in the presidential elections.
In addition to promising pardon to those convicted of January 6th, Donald Trump also stated that he wants to criminally accuse the members of the commission that investigated the assault on Congress.
This commission carried out more than a thousand interviews and conducted 10 public hearings, during which it accounted to the minute of Trump's inaction in the face of violence and the stratagems of his allies to subvert the results of the 2020 election, including sending false large electoral college voters to the certification process.
No comments:
Post a Comment