President Donald Trump on his first day in office issued nearly 1,500 pardons in connection with the Jan. 6 riots, including those who assaulted police officers. NBC6’s Ari Odzer spoke to former federal prosecutors and police officers about the pardons.
On a day of controversial moves, President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon all of the Jan. 6. defendants, including those who assaulted police officers, might have been his most contentious executive order.
It’s a sensitive issue in the law enforcement community, much of which supported Trump in the election. We contacted local police unions and got no responses, but former prosecutors and former police officers had a lot to say about the pardons.
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WATCH HEREJan. 6, 2021, was a day of chaos, a day of violence directed squarely at the police officers who were guarding the United States Capitol Building.
“It’s just mind-boggling, you can hear the cops crying in pain, you can see everything that went on there and now it’s like it doesn’t matter,” said former Miami Police major David Magnusson.
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As he signed the pardons, Trump said, “So this is January 6th, these are the hostages, approximately 15-hundred, full pardon.”
He calls them hostages, the rioters who were convicted and sentenced in a court of law in the largest federal investigation in United States history. Several prosecutors based in Miami worked on some of the cases. More than 140 officers were injured in the rampage, some permanently.
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“Did we forget about their gallantry and their courage?” asked Magnusson, who was a cop for 37 years, mostly with Miami Police but he was also the chief of the El Portal Police Department.
“I would not be for a pardon for anybody that attacked our House on January 6th, but especially those that attacked the men and women of law enforcement, it’s just incomprehensible to me,” Magnusson said.
Mike Fanone was one of the D.C. police officers injured in the riot. He testified in Congress, and he has made numerous appearances on television, including CNN on Monday night.
“Rest assured, I have been betrayed by my country,” Fanone said.
Jeffrey Sloman was a federal prosecutor for 20 years and the former U.S. Attorney in Miami. I asked him what he thought when he heard that the president had pardoned all of the Jan. 6 convicts.
“I was sick to my stomach, I was appalled,” Sloman said. “And I was almost more appalled by the fact that it’s an attempt to erase history.”
Another former federal prosecutor, David Weinstein, says the prosecutors and FBI agents worked hard to bring the rioters to justice, only to see their work undone by the pardons.
“It certainly leaves the prosecutors who were involved in these cases with a very empty feeling in the pit of their stomach,” Weinstein said.
“This is a slap in the face to law enforcement officials and prosecutors and everyone who believes in the rule of law,” said Dave Aronberg, who was the state attorney of Palm Beach County for 12 years until he recently went into private practice. “Donald Trump ran on always having the backs of law enforcement, back the blue, but you cannot back the blue if you pardon people who attack police officers.”
Aronberg believes the pardons could hurt Trump politically. One Republican senator did speak out against pardoning the violent offenders today. The question is whether any other GOP lawmakers will follow suit and whether the public is in favor of Trump’s decision.
