It Is Happening Every Day, Every Where
Ed Martin, President Trump’s new U.S. attorney in Washington, came to the aid of the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes had been sentenced to 18 years for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The South Carolina Republican told CNN that he “did not like” how Trump pardoned people who “beat up cops,” and suggested he would be open to curtailing the presidential pardon power.
Even more than in his first term, President Trump has mounted a fundamental challenge to the norms and expectations of what a president can and should do.
Ed Martin, a longtime advocate for Jan. 6 defendants recently named to run the prosecutors’ office, sought to undo a judge’s order barring Stewart Rhodes from visiting Washington.
President Trump’s flurry of pardons this week sent a message to law enforcement: He will “back the blue” if they back him.
President Trump pardoned men who violently attacked police officers on Jan. 6 along with nearly 1,600 other people who had been charged in connection with the riot. But his grant of clemency did not erase the video evidence of their crimes.
The man faced felony charges related to the Capitol attack, including using an explosive device to assault police officers. President Trump granted broad clemency to the rioters in one of his first acts.
The nation’s politics are going to change in President Trump’s second term — though we don’t yet know how.
Speaker Mike Johnson said the panel would counter “false narratives” about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and what led up to it, a sign that the G.O.P. would continue to try shift blame for the attack.
While dismissing cases, judges who have overseen the prosecutions made clear that the orders did nothing to change the reality of the attack on the Capitol.