Less than 24 hours after taking the presidential oath for the second time, Donald Trump fulfilled his promise to grant clemency to those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. With a pen in hand, he attempts to transform insurrectionists into patriots and individuals who tried to impede the peaceful transfer of power into heroes.
Trump pardoned about 1,500 January 6 offenders and commuted the sentences of 14 people convicted of crimes related to the insurrection. He did this despite vigorous objections not only from Democrats but also from individuals like U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, who noted that his opposition “is not about any particular president.”
“What message does this send to police officers across the country,” Manger asked, “if someone doesn’t think that a conviction for assault or worse against a police officer is something that should be upheld?”
The president has repeatedly stated that the left uses the events of January 6 as a “pretext for their total war against free speech.” And he labeled the protesters as “Americans who were denied due process and unjustly prosecuted by the Department of Justice, which has become a weapon.”
With polls indicating strong partisan divides over the merits of clemency for the January 6 insurrectionists, the president’s action will divide, not unify. It will inflame divisions, not heal them. This is not a good omen for a country already tense and divided.
How will Trump be a unifier with actions like this in his early hours of governance, as he emphasized in his inaugural address?
Source: MSNBC