President-elect Donald Trump said he wants to pardon his supporters involved in the attacks on the US Capitol on January 6 from his first day in office. He said the prisoners were “living in hell.”
Trump’s comments, the most sweeping he has made since winning the 2024 election, came during an exclusive interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. He also said he will not try to turn the Justice Department against his political enemies, warning that some members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack “should go to jail.”
On his first day as president, Trump said he will provide legal assistance to the January 6 rioters, who he said were run through a “very dirty system.”
‘I’m going to act very quickly. The first day,” Trump said, later adding of their captivity, “they’ve been there for years and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be open.”
Trump said there “could be some exceptions” to his pardon “if someone was radical or crazy” and pointed to some debunked claims about anti-Trump elements and law enforcement infiltrating the crowd.
At least 1,572 defendants have been charged and more than 1,251 have been convicted or found guilty of the attack. Of those, at least 645 suspects have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from a few days to 22 years in federal lockup. There are currently approximately 250 people in custody, most of whom are serving their sentences after being convicted. A handful are being held in pre-trial detention by order of a federal judge.
Trump did not rule out pardoning individuals who had pleaded guilty, even when Welker asked him about those who had admitted to assaulting police officers.
“Because they had no choice,” Trump said.
Asked about the more than 900 others who had pleaded guilty in connection with the attack but were not charged with assaulting officers, Trump suggested they had been unfairly pressured to accept guilty pleas.
“I know the system. The system is a very corrupt system,” Trump said. “They say to a man, ‘You’re going to jail for two or thirty years.’ And these guys look, their whole lives are destroyed. They were destroyed for two years. But the system is a very dirty system.”
The crimes charged range from unlawful parading to seditious conspiracy in the sweeping Jan. 6 investigation, which included rioters who were captured on video carrying out attacks on officers and admitted under oath to doing so. The January 6 suspects in custody include Proud Boys and Oath Keeper, convicted of seditious conspiracy, a January 6 defendant recently convicted of conspiring to kill the FBI special agents investigating him; another was accused of firing gunshots into the air during the attack; and another was arrested outside former President Barack Obama’s home after Trump posted a screenshot with the address on it.
Trump said he would not order Pam Bondi, his nominee to become the next attorney general, to investigate special counsel Jack Smith, who filed two separate federal cases against Trump that were ultimately dismissed after the election. Trump called Smith “deranged” and said he thinks he is “very corrupt.” Ultimately, he said, he would leave those decisions to Bondi, and he said he would not order her to prosecute Smith.
“I want her to do what she wants to do,” Trump said. “I’m not going to instruct her to do it.”
Trump claimed that members of the January 6 House committee had “lied” and “destroyed a year and a half’s worth of testimony.”
He singled out Republican Liz Cheney, an outspoken Trump critic who left Congress, and Democrat Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee, saying they destroyed evidence collected during their investigation and that “those people committed a major crime. ”
Transcripts and videos of some of the more than 1,000 witnesses interviewed by the committees have been preserved by the committee and posted online. Some interviews containing private and sensitive information were sent to the White House and Department of Homeland Security for review to ensure that certain information was not unlawfully released. Those transcripts remain with the bureau, and the White House and a separate House committee still have access.
“Frankly, they should go to jail,” Trump said of the committee members, insisting he would not order his appointees to arrest them.
Trump’s view on DOJ, FBI
The interview offers an in-depth look at Trump’s thoughts on the Justice Department and the FBI.
Trump – who faced four separate criminal cases and became the first former US president to be convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 crimes in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case – expressed deep grievances with the justice system , but emphasized that he was looking forward to it.
“I have no intention of going back to the past,” Trump said when asked whether he would go after outgoing President Joe Biden. “I want to make our country successful. Retaliation will come through success.”
While Trump had previously said he would appoint a special counsel to investigate Biden, the president-elect said he had no intention of doing so “unless I find something that I think is reasonable” and that such a move would be “Pam Bondi’s decision would be.” decision, and, to a different extent, Kash Patel,” his choice for FBI chief.
FBI Director Chris Wray — the Republican whom Trump appointed to head the agency during his first term after firing former FBI Director James Comey — would have to be fired or resign before Patel could take his place. Under a post-Watergate reform, FBI directors serve 10-year terms, although only one FBI director — former Director Robert Mueller, who eventually served 12 years and later became special counsel investigating Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian interference in those elections – made it so long.
Trump said he wasn’t “excited” about Wray because he “invaded my house,” referring to the search of Mar-a-Lago during the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents in which boxes of documents were found at the resort , including some stored in a bathroom.
‘I’m suing the country about it. He invaded Mar a Lago,” Trump said. “I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done, and crime is at an all-time high.” (Law enforcement data shows a “historic” drop in crime.) Trump indicated that Wray would be fired if he did not resign.
Asked about a list of 60 members that Patel named in his book as members of the so-called “deep state,” Trump said Patel would “do what he thinks is right” if confirmed, adding that he thought that Patel had an “obligation” to investigate whether “anyone was dishonest or corrupt or a corrupt politician.”
It will be more than forty days before Trump takes office and Justice Department prosecutors continue filing cases against individual rioters, but the coming change in administration has not gone unnoticed.
On Friday, a federal judge appointed by then-President Ronald Reagan emphasized the importance of “truth and justice, law and order” before sentencing a defendant on Jan. 6 to a year in prison. After imposing the sentence, Lamberth ordered Philip Grillo taken into custody.
“Trump is going to forgive me,” Grillo said as he took off his belt and surrendered.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
