(The hill) – President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardon of more than 1,500 people charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, including people who attacked police officers, stunned Republican lawmakers who envisioned the chaos on Capitol Hill experienced first hand for four years.
Trump’s actions defied assurances from his allies that he would consider convictions on a case-by-case basis and not grant clemency to people who committed violence, dividing Republican senators and overshadowing talks about his agenda for the first 100 days.
Republican lawmakers are largely willing to ignore the hundreds of people who illegally entered the Capitol four years ago, disrupting the certification of former President Joe Biden’s victory for several hours, but it has been tough to pardon people who attacking the Capitol Police, causing dozens of injuries.
“It is wrong to pardon people convicted of violent crimes, especially when many of the victims of their violence were police officers,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said in a statement.
Moran expressed a view shared by many of his Republican colleagues in the Senate, even as many of them shied away from publicly criticizing Trump.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is up for re-election this election cycle, said people who attacked police should serve their sentences, breaking with other Republican senators who tried to stay still on the issue speak.
“It’s not right. People who attack police officers should take their time when committing the crime,” he said.
Cassidy described himself as a “big back-the-blue guy,” referring to his past support in law enforcement.
“Whether you are in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Shreveport, Monroe, Lafayette, Alexandria, Lake Charles or Washington, D.C., it is wrong to attack anyone,” he said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said blanket pardons for people convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6 send the wrong message to the law enforcement officers who protect lawmakers every day.
“I do not believe that the approach of a blanket pardon that includes those who have caused harm to our police officers or others has led to violence – I am disappointed to see that.” And I fear the message that will be sent to these great men and women who stood by us,” she said.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters before a meeting of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday morning that she does not support pardons for people convicted of “violent crimes.”
Cassidy, Murkowski and Collins are three of the seven Republican senators who voted on January 6 to convict Trump in his impeachment trial for incitement of insurrection.
Other Republicans in the Senate also joined in criticizing Trump’s actions.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he has “concerns about pardoning people who have harmed a police officer, period.”
He called pardoning people who committed violence against officers a “bad idea.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) quoted Vice President JD Vance (R)’s statement during a recent interview with “Fox News Sunday” in which he said that people who committed violence that day “obviously … should not be pardoned.” ”
“Well, I think I agree with the vice president,” McConnell told Semafor. “No one should excuse violence. And especially violence against police officers.”
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia noted that about 140 police officers were attacked on January 6, including 80 from the U.S. Capitol Police and 60 from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
Even Trump’s closest allies in Congress warned Trump last month that pardoning people who attacked Capitol police personnel would be the wrong move.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in December that he would not stand in the way of Trump’s pardon of the protesters convicted on Jan. 6, but argued that people convicted of assaulting police officers should be in a “different category “ fall.
“We’ll see what he does. I mean, it’s been four or five years [since the attack]. Those who hurt police officers are in a different category for me, but we’ll leave that to him,” he said.
Graham declined to discuss the sweeping pardon order Tuesday, saying he would have more to say about it this weekend.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) tried to brush off the controversy as he came under fire from television camera crews outside his office in the Dirksen Building on Tuesday morning.
“Look, I have no comments. I haven’t seen everything [executive orders] that he still signed,” he said.
“We’ve said all along that Biden opened the door here,” he said, referring to the former president’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden in early December and the preemptive pardon of five other family members just minutes before Trump’s inauguration .
Thune later told reporters: “We’re not looking back, we’re looking forward.”
But Republican senators admitted they didn’t feel good about the sweeping scope of Trump’s actions, which wiped out lengthy prison sentences for former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes on charges were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges.
“I wish he had done it on a case-by-case basis and perhaps gotten a different result on some of them,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).
“But with President Biden pardoning the entire January 6 Committee and his entire family, it certainly confirms in many ways the desire and the move to just put the whole thing behind us,” Cramer argued.
“In my opinion it’s not ideal,” he added. “I just want to put it behind us now.”
Some Republican senators privately expressed frustration that Trump was plunged into another major controversy less than a day after he was sworn into his second term.
One lawmaker said it reminded Republican senators of the daily rollercoaster of controversy that marked his first term in the White House.
“It’s déjà vu,” the senator quipped.
Trump’s broad utilize of the pardon power has not helped Senate Republicans convince Democrats to abandon their partisanship to speed up the confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer (NY), described Trump’s actions as “un-American”.
“Let’s be clear. President Trump didn’t just pardon the protesters. “He pardoned some people who were convicted of assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
“It is a betrayal at the highest level of our Capitol Police officers who risked their lives to protect us,” he said.
A Washington Post poll conducted last month found that two-thirds of Americans oppose pardoning people convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes.
