Donald Trump’s pardons for more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol four years ago drew criticism Tuesday from police officers who fought the mob, their families and at least one of the president’s Republican colleagues.
Trump granted clemency to all those accused of participating in the January 6, 2021 attack, during an unsuccessful attempt to reverse his electoral defeat. Around 140 police officers were injured in the stampede, which sent parliamentarians running for their lives.
Craig Sicknick, whose brother, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, was attacked during the riot and died of multiple strokes the next day, said Tuesday that Trump is “pure evil.”
“The man who killed my brother is now president,” he said.
“My brother died in vain. Everything he did to try to protect the country, to protect the Capitol — why did he bother?” Sicknick told Reuters. “What Trump did is despicable and proves that the United States no longer has anything resembling a justice system.”
Michael Fanone, a former Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer who suffered serious injuries during the riot, said last Monday that he is upset that six people who assaulted him that day walked free.
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“I was betrayed by my country,” he told CNN.
Trump’s leniency extended to people who committed only misdemeanors, such as trespassing, and those who attacked police officers, in addition to the much smaller group who masterminded the attack on democracy.
One of Trump’s Republican colleagues, Senator Thom Tillis, said pardoning attackers who assaulted police sends the wrong message.
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“I saw an image today on my news clipping of the people who were crushing that police officer. None of them should receive a pardon,” Tillis told Reuters in a hallway interview. “You make this place less safe if you send the signal that police officers can potentially be attacked and there are no consequences.”
CAMPAIGN PROMISE
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended the pardons, claiming without evidence that many of the convictions were politically motivated.
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“President Trump campaigned on that promise,” he said on Fox News. “It should come as no surprise that he fulfilled it on the first day.”
One protester, Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by police during the January 6 riot as she tried to force her way into the House chamber. Four police officers who served that day later died by suicide.
Trump’s pardons were not the only ones last Monday: in his final hours in office, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned five members of his own family, after pardoning his son Hunter Biden, who had been accused of tax fraud and illegal purchase of firearms last year. The Democrat had previously committed not to pardon his son.
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Tillis also criticized Biden’s pardons.
