Promises made, promises kept, President Trump liked to crow during his first term, sometimes deservedly.
He’s only days into his second term and already he’s making that claim after a torrent of executive orders. In no case is his boast more justified, if shameful, than for his Day 1 blanket order pardoning 1,583 rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, commuting the sentences of those most responsible — and violent — and dismissing all remaining cases.
Trump vowed at rallies throughout his 2024 campaign that once back in office he’d immediately free “the J-6 hostages.” Yet in keeping that promise, he broke a long-forgotten one on the same subject. He made it not at a political rally but in a videotaped recording at the White House, a day after the seven-hour insurrection was put down and as he faced bipartisan condemnation for his complicity.
The president who’d inspired the mob to try to keep him in power began that evening by calling Jan. 6 not a “day of love” among patriots, as he says these days, but a “heinous attack on the United States Capitol.” And then, still sounding like a normal president, Trump said this:
“Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders. America is and must always be a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay.”
At the time, the only lies in that passage seemed to be Trump’s contention that he “immediately deployed” forces to quell the tumult that directly or indirectly caused the deaths of nine people, including five police officers. Now we know the whole thing was a lie: Trump wasn’t outraged. He didn’t really condemn the “demonstrators” — they were pro-Trump, after all, as shown by the banners on poles that were weaponized against police. He didn’t care that they were lawless or violent despite the carnage he witnessed watching hours of televised coverage alone in the White House, ignoring aides’ and family members’ pleas to intervene.
Most of all, Trump didn’t really believe his rioters should “pay.”
And now, just as Trump has paid no price for his role as the instigator of Jan. 6, he’s wiped the books clean for all the attackers, negating verdicts by scores of juries of their peers.
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