Donald Trump says he plans to make freeing the criminals jailed in relation to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol one of his main priorities as in the early days of his new administration if he wins re-election in November.
“My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!” he wrote in a Truth Social post Monday. Although the likely Republican nominee has previously said he would pardon many of the rioters—and has even referred to those lawfully convicted and sentenced to prison time as “hostages”—his latest remarks appear to be the first time that he’s indicated that he’ll address the issue in the first days of his hypothetical return to the White House.
According to a Justice Department statement, “more than 1,358 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol” over the course of the 38 months since the riot. Of those charged, more than 486 have been charged with “assaulting or impeding law enforcement,” the DOJ said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Last May, Trump said he was “inclined to pardon many” of the rioters. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control,” he told a town hall in New Hampshire. He added that the pardons would come “very early on” if he’s re-elected but didn’t explicitly say it could be a potential Day 1 priority for his administration.
He’s since drawn the ire of the White House by referring to the imprisoned rioters as “hostages.” At a campaign event in Iowa in January, on the third anniversary of the attack, Trump alleged that the prisoners had been mistreated by the Biden administration. “They’ve suffered enough,” Trump said of the convicts. “I call them hostages. Some people call them prisoners.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response that it is “grotesque and offensive to compare those convicted of assaulting cops and attempting to overthrow the American government” with the people abducted by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel.
In his own speech on the eve of the anniversary, President Biden also attacked Trump for referring to the rioters as “patriots” instead of “criminals.” “Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault,” he added. “They were insurrectionists, not patriots. They weren’t there to uphold the Constitution; they were there to destroy the Constitution.”
