It is unclear how much is left in Washington to restrain him.
His vice president, JD Vance, said he “obviously” wouldn’t do it.
His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, agreed there was no way: “The president does not like people that abuse police officers,” she told senators last week.
The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, gave similar assurances that President Trump would not pardon “violent criminals” — the kind who bashed police officers with pieces of broken furniture or stashed an arsenal of weapons in Virginia to be used if their breach of the Capitol failed on Jan. 6, 2021.
Even public opinion was against Mr. Trump. Just 34 percent of Americans thought he should pardon the Jan. 6 rioters, according to a Monmouth University poll in December.
But on Monday, the first day of the second Trump presidency, he tossed caution aside and did exactly what he wanted: He decreed that every rioter would get some sort of reprieve. It didn’t matter what crimes they committed; whether they were convicted of violent acts or even seditious conspiracy, they will all eventually be cleared. Hundreds of convicts got full pardons; 14 members of far-right groups accused of sedition had their sentences expunged; and all others with ongoing cases will eventually have their charges dismissed.
Mr. Trump’s decision to intervene in even the most violent cases sends an unmistakable message about his plans for power these next four years: He intends — even more so than in his first term — to test the outer limits of what he can get away with.
“These people have been destroyed,” Mr. Trump said of the Jan. 6 rioters, after issuing the pardons, sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office for the first time as the 47th president. “What they’ve done to these people is outrageous.”