President Trump mass pardoned January 6th rioters, many who violently attacked police officers. The rioters were convicted in U.S. courts with due process. But the pardons undermine those court rulings, and possibly the concept of rule of law in America.
Paula Reid, main legal correspondent in CNN.
Mary McCord, Executive Director of the Institute of Constitutional Defense and Protection and Visiting Law Professor at the Law Center of the University of Georgetown.
Part i
Meghna Chakrabarti: hours after being released from the federal criminal last week, Enrique Tarrio asked the show of Alex Jones. Jones is a right animator and a conspiracy theorist who said that the United States government had organized the attacks of September 11, Oklahoma City’s attack and the 1969 TouchDown moon.
Jones also brutally broadcast members of the circle of relatives of young people killed in the Sandy Hook, Connecticut, shooting. He found himself guilty of this. And a judgment by Pass ordered him to pay more than $1 billion in damages to Sandy Hook’s parents. Jones said bankruptcy rather. Now, Alex Jones also partially funded the meetings of Donald Trump, who took his position in Washington, D. C. , on January 6, 2021.
He supported efforts to overthrow the 2020 elections and spoke with Trump’s supporters on January 6 before this crowd was attacked by the American Capitol. Jones called it, quotes, a turning point in American history, the best appointment. Now, why do I the story of Alex Jones? Well, because it has to do with Enrique Tarrio.
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He is the leader of the militia organization, the proud children. And one of his links with Jones is January 6. Tarrio had turned 22 in criminal after being discovered that he blamed the sedicious conspiracy opposed to the United States for his participation in the attack on the American Capitol. And this is what Tarrio said about Jones.
Enrique Tarrio: Success will be a retaliation, you know, we will have to do everything in our strength to ensure that the next 4 years prepare us for the next hundred years.
CHAKRABARTI: Tarrio’s 22 years was the longest sentence of almost 1,600 people who were federally charged in connection to January 6th. Tarrio wasn’t physically at the Capitol on the day of the attack.
In fact, he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered to leave Washington, D. C. , yet charged with having organized and directed the proud attacks by children opposed to Congress. And he had served this sentence until this month, when he won a full pardon from President Donald Trump.
That’s when Alex Jones.
Tarrio: I’m pleased that the president doesn’t focus on pay and the focus on success, but I’ll tell you that I won’t play by those rules. The other people who did this, they want to feel the heat. They will have to be put in. They forgave the J6 committee, very well. In this country, our case shows that you can be imprisoned for anything.
Chakrabarti: The investigation of January 6 was the greatest undertaken through the Ministry of Justice in the history of the United States. On the first day of his presidency, President Trump disappointed this by issuing indults or changes for more than 1,500 people more accused by the attack of January 6. Trump signed the order with the same black marker.
DONALD TRUMP: So this is a big one. Anything you want to explain about this? We hope they come out tonight, frankly.
Chakrabarti: On January 6, 2021, the uproarters broke into the Capitol of the United States, and broke the building, defined in their corridors. They threatened the US government and the other people who serve it, and temporarily arrested the confirmation procedure of electoral constitutional electorals. vote.
Many have also violently attacked police officers. Trump’s blanket pardons do not distinguish between those who have and have not committed physical violence at the Capitol. Even if some 140 police officers were brutally attacked that day. And some 172 defendants pleaded for guilt for having attacked the application of the laws.
Officer [Daniel] Hodges tried to hold the line on January 6th at the Capitol. He still works for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, and he talked to reporters after Trump pardoned the people who attacked him.
Daniel Hodges: They called me a traitor, telling my oath.
I was beaten, crushed, kicked, punched, surrounded. Someone reached underneath my visor, tried to gouge out my eye.
And all these people were just pardoned by Donald Trump, who says that they were the real victims. That they were the patriots. I don’t understand how anyone can believe that.
Chakrabarti: Trump’s actions, which are not surprising, fall short of what his own vice president said happens in the days just before Trump’s inauguration.
About two weeks ago, in mid -January, the vice president chose JD Vance in Fox News. And it seemed to recommend that other people who committed violence would not be forgiven.
JD Vance: I think it’s very simple. Look, if you’re peacefully protesting on January 6th, and you’ve been treated by Merrick Garland’s Justice Department like a gang member, you’re forgiven.
If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned. And there’s a little bit of a grey area there.
Chakrabarti: Obviously, that is not what Trump did. He gave this forgiveness to cover. Now, the massive pellets were not universally welcome through the Republicans. Some have dared to speak. This is the republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
He at the NBC press assembly this weekend.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: I fear that you will get more violence. Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently I think was a mistake, because it seems to suggest that’s an okay thing to do.
Chakrabarti: Jackson Reffitt told ABC News he was concerned, too.
His father sentenced seven years in criminal for the attack on January 6. And that happened after Jackson remodeled his own father to the authorities. Now his father is free.
Jackson Reffitt: I love him and looked after entering prison, however, all he has is more radicalized. He wants no more touch with those excessive right militias that validate him.
He wants a memory and this forgiveness does not go to him. This will validate and justify all the measures you have taken before this point. And that is what scares me, is who knows what this validation can lead.
Chakrabarti: Another man, Stewart Rhodes, on Trump’s most sensible switching list.
He is the founder and leader of the excessive right group, the oath. It has been used for 18 years for seditious conspiracy opposite to the United States in relation to the attack on January 6. After being released this month from a Marylandarray Rhodes he waited before D. C. For another defendant, he spoke with the media.
Stewart Rhodes: I think it’s an intelligent day for the United States that is, all errors are defeated. So, none of those other people have been here first. None of them have been attempted in a fair proof.
REPORTER: And what about, what would you say to the Capitol Police officers who were injured in this?
RHODES: What do you mean, what do I say?
Reporter: I mean, there are Capitol Hill police officers who have been seriously injured.
Rhodes: Well, and?
Report: And they are worried that other people do not have to face charges.
Rhodes: No, they faced charges, but like I said, you’re supposed to be blameless until you’ve been guilty, until you received a fair trial before a fair jury that this will hold the government to a moderate rule of doubt, before a passing judgment on who is also fair.
It’s going to hold the government to its evidentiary burden of turning over exculpatory evidence, and also not do perjure testimony. Until you get that fair trial, you’re presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Chakrabarti: After his release, Rhodes also visited the American Capitol, the same building he had attacked 4 years earlier, to protect the release of some other jury.
Since then, a trial pass has barred Rhodes from entering the Capitol or Washington, D. C. without judicial authorization. Now, we search after skipping this story, because it’s been 4 years since that exclusive and horrific day in U. S. history, January 6, 2021.
And with those blanket pardons for other people who tried to disrupt the nonviolent movement of power, anything that has been going on for centuries in this country, and have tried to do so, in many cases, violently, what calls the question of the religion of this country in this country in the whole concept of the rule of law.
So this is what we are going through to communicate today. But let’s start with some main points about this forgiveness, or those forgives, and we will pass to Paula Reid. He is a legal correspondent at CNN. Paula, it is wonderful to see you again.
Paula Reid: And thank you so much for having me.
Chakrabarti: And thanks for listening through that story that we feel very firmly that we are looking for them to be reduced.
I mean, with that background in mind, spend a minute giving us more details. I’ve been saying pardons and commutations, but it was overwhelmingly one of those things. What actually happened?
Reid: Yes, that’s right. See, a pen of a pen, it just finished the 1,600 cases, since January 6th, in 3 other ways.
Most of the other people, the overwhelming majority of other people, who had been convicted, won Indones. Another 14 people decided for the switches. This means that their sentence is destroyed, they can leave the prison, but they still have this conviction. But there will be a procedure to review these switches, and some of those 14 people would possibly get forgiveness very well.
And the last organization was other people whose applications are still pending. These instances will be rejected. But what we were promised was so that this nuanced, violent approach was not violent versus. But he was transparent in recent months of briefing and speaking to Trump’s advisers that it would likely be much broader. Because they decided to do it on us on day one, and they were resistant to any kind of process, you know, the individual case, through the evaluation case, would take time.
CHAKRABARTI: Was it just his advisors that were resistant to the process or President Trump himself as well?
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Reid: Then, Trump promised to do it the first day. So his advisors commissioned understanding, well, how do we do that? All they said is that we are not going to make a base on a case base basis. This will not be the same old process.
And I said, okay, well, how are you going to make this distinction, which Trump points out, needs to do it. Vance, even the president of the Chamber has said that they will make the difference between violent and non -violent criminals. Because it is a very violent event. And if it makes a base on a case basis, it is difficult to distinguish.
Because even if you said that all the defendants of attack will be forgiven. Well, it is a very wide variety of driving that is charged under attack. In addition, you have other people like Enrique Tarrio, whom you referred to, who did not directly have an interaction in the violence that directed it from afar and also won one of the maximum serious sentences.
So it was clear that this was going to take a lot of work. There’s a lot of nuance, if you really want to parse out violent versus nonviolent. But Trump wanted to send a message. And he just said, you know what, let’s just do it this way. So something much more broad than what he had signaled.
Part II
Chakrabarti: Today we are talking about the very concept of the rule of law in the United States and what President Donald Trump forgives all those who have been accused and convicted or who have declared themselves guilty, in regards to their participation On January 6. , 2021 Capitol disturbances, what those canopies of canopy about the concept of the rule of law in this country say.
I joined today through Paula Reid, CNN’s legal leader of the leader. And before I go any further, I just need to give something that I said a little bit earlier. He had argued that the leader of the oath keepers, Stewart Rhodes, had decided to us through a trial that he needed permission to enter the Capitol or Washington, D. C.
Well, it turns out just yesterday, that requirement was revoked by another judge, so he no longer needs permission to walk the very halls or enter halls of Congress or enter the city of Washington, D.C. So let’s hear a little bit again from an actual member of law enforcement.
He is former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn. He at the site of the attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Now Dunn had no luck for his purposes last year. He lost the Democratic Congressional primary in Maryland’s 3rd District. And that, or just last week, expressed his deep frustration with the pardons.
Harry Dunn: The Republican party has affirmed that it is the law and order. However, many legislators have silenced and refused to retreat in opposition to Donald Trump’s movements, make it incredibly difficult to take this statement seriously.
Chakrabarti: Well, here’s President Trump himself and him on Fox News with Sean Hannity, and Hannity asked him why he had forgiven rioters who violently attacked or had violently attacked police.
TRUMP: It would be very, very cumbersome to go and look, you know how many people we’re talking about? 1,500 people, almost all of them are, should not have been, this should not have happened. And the other thing is this. Some of those people with the police troop, but they were very minor incidents, okay? You know, they get built up by that, a couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time.
They were very minor incidents, and it was time. You have killers in Philadelphia, you have killers in Los Angeles who don’t even have time. They don’t even pick them up and know they’re there to be picked. And then they turn on the TV and act holier than you or that one.
You had 1,500 people that suffered. That’s a lot of people.
Chakrabarti: President Donald Trump on Fox News with Sean Hannity. To bring Mary McCord into the verbal exchange now. She is the Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Defense and Protection. She is also a visiting law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
She is an Interim National Security Attorney General at the United States Ministry of Justice from 2016 to 2017 and held other positions in the highest grades of the Federal Judicial System. Mary McCord, welcome to the point.
Mary McCord: Thank you, Meghna. It is good to be here.
CHAKRABARTI: Minor incidents? Were these minor incidents in the physical attacks on law enforcement on January 6th?
McCord: No, they weren’t. And it’s enough to ask the many judges, the judges of the Federal District Court of the District Court here in the District of Columbia, who tried those nearly 1,600 cases, saw the evidence several times, you know, the violent attacks opposed law enforcement officers, the erection of a noose to check to suspend Mike Pence, the destruction of property and the ketter.
And so have the rest of us. We have noticed a video, we listened to its audio, we saw social networks show off. All of this. So, yes, were there other people accused of crimes, whose crimes were not violent and who came in and intruded and things like that?Yes, there is a component of this component of nearly 1,600 whose crimes were nonviolent.
And that is, you know, why I think we heard people like JD Vance say, those are the people who are likely to be pardoned, but Trump went so much further than that, including pardoning you know, more than 600 people charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement. And 174 of those did so with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
We are speaking about swords, axes, axes, knives, etc. So no, a minor incident. 140 officials seriously injured. One. And the one who knows, several who died. After.
Chakrabarti: Then, right, right. So I’m glad you have pointed out that we have all noticed. Because I think, I mean, other people do not yet do it or have not noticed the total video or the express movements you are talking about. But the point remains that the attack of January 6 remains one of the most productive documented documents, through videos and audio and eye accounts, mass crimes in the history of the United States.
And yet President Trump has somehow, in the minds and eyes of his voters, shifted the criminality as he sees it, away from the people who attacked Congress on January 6th and towards the entire justice system of this country. I mean, just listen to President Trump again. This is from his interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News just six days ago, Wednesday, January 22nd.
Just two days after he issued those pardons, and Sean Hannity asked the president why he had pardoned people who were, quote, convicted or involved in incidents where they were violent with the police. And this is the first part of what Trump said.
Trump: several reasons. Number one, they were there for 3 years and a partial, for a long time, and in many, solitary isolation, treated as if no one had been treated, treated so much.
They were treated as the worst criminals in history. And you know why they were there? They protest opposite to the vote because they knew that the elections were falsified and that they protested the vote. And you are legal to protest opposite to a vote. You are allowed to do it. You know, the day, when the day comes.
HANNITY: But you shouldn’t be able to invade the Capitol.
TRUMP: No. Ready? Most of the people were absolutely innocent. Okay, but forgetting all about that, these people have served horribly, a long time.
Chakrabarti: Well, therefore, Mary, first of all, there were many other people in Washington that day, and also that they had approached the Capitol, which protested peacefully. Only to be clear, as far as we know, in him, you know, in almost 1,600 cases that the Ministry of Justice brought, one of the other people who were out of doors to the Protestant of the Pacificly Capitol.
McCord: I don’t. Unless they went to limited areas. Like I said, some were nonviolent, but there were many, many, many who were in fact involved in violence and many who pleaded guilty.
Chakrabarti: Right. And in fact, the rally beforehand, no one was arrested for his movements then, right?
That is completely in line with the freedom of speech and expression in this country. But Trump here, the President here is saying that these, the people that the Justice Department charged were the worst treated in U.S. history. I don’t know exactly what he’s talking about there, but, I mean, what’s your response to the President?
Even that.
McCord: Well, it really turns out that it is anything that the president is only reaching up He abandoned. He abandoned his statements that it was a rigged election that Joe Biden did not legitimately won.
And then I think that component of this is to justify those lies. I mean, we just listen to this clip saying so much, about those other people had the right to protest opposite to a manipulated choice. There is no evidence of this. And you know, in terms of treatment, the judges of the Columbia district. You know, all the appropriate procedures followed and trust the constitutional rights of the accused before them.
So let me tell you what it means. This means making other people have a lawyer. If they can’t, they are given their name. If you can, one. It is a lawyer of your choice. These lawyers have the option of winning applications before trial, seeking to suppress evidence, trying to exclude evidence, trying to reject the case.
If they think you’ve been brought in unjustly, those judges provide you with what’s called normal procedure, what is this process, right?To bring requests, have a defense. Those who sought to plead for guilt have read their rights. They give up those rights. He pleaded for guilt, accepted the facts that would be proposed, which were proposed through the prosecutors. Because a plea to blame means that the prosecutor says that if this matter is tried, here are the facts that the government would prove.
And the judgment of the approval of all the defendants and says: Do you agree that those, you know, with those facts? Judgment, your lawyers can participate in the jurors selection for this trial.
They are able to defend this trial. The defendant, if you choose it, can testify this trial. And the verdict demands a unanimous verdict. The judges then take data before the conviction. And they come with all this to do their prayer.
And I just have to notice that the judges appointed through the Democrats, the Democratic presidents, the Republican presidents and Donald Trump himself their first mandate have been uniformly, the conviction, criticized and denounced the violence and severity of those crimes He denounced what was done there. And he indicated that the attempt here not only feared violence, but also to overthrow the effects of the elections.
Chakrabarti: I am very satisfied that you have discussed this, Mary, because I wanted to ask this question.
I mean, I perceive a lot why this goal exists, especially, you know, among the political types in Washington and in the media, well, Trump should not have forgiven the other people who violently attacked the police. But do not distinguish, in a certain sense, between the two who lack the point, right?
Because, yes, I mean, physical violence is abhorrent, no matter what, but so is a kind of political violence, which is also, it was, at least at one time, abhorrent in this country, which is essentially what happened on January 6th. So when we have people who pleaded guilty to, you know, charges of attempting to overthrow the 2020 election and things like that, but yet we in the media are like really focused on shouldn’t Trump have not pardoned the people who violently attacked a police officer?
Are we missing the point?
McCord: I think you are surely right on this issue, Meghna, because even for those who were not violent, you know, they were persecuted because they have violated the legislation, the legislation that are put in a public security position, the safety of the members of the members of the members of the Congress, those who enter and abandon the construction of the Capitol to do their homework and things as the constitutionally required assembly of the two Congress cameras to certify the electoral vote.
And, you know, just to mention some things that judges said at sentencing, you know, one judge said the court cannot condone the shameless attempts by the defendant and anyone else to misinterpret or misrepresent what happened. It cannot condone the notion that those who broke the law on January 6th did nothing wrong or that those duly convicted with all the safeguards of the United States constitution, including a right to trial by jury in felony cases, are political prisoners or hostages.
And then he said on January 6th, a mob of people invaded and occupied the U.S. Capitol using force to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power mandated by the constitution and our Republican heritage. This was not patriotism. It was the antithesis of patriotism. So that’s, you know, a Republican judge on the fence for almost 40 years.
And to your point, there really was no reason for any of these pardons. I think people are rationalizing, well, if there were going to be pardons, they certainly shouldn’t apply to the people who, you know, committed acts of violence, but a pardon is an act of mercy that is generally received when a defendant has accepted responsibility, changed their life for the better, maybe served a very long sentence.
Oftentimes pardons are after person has already finished their sentence. And they’ve contributed the community and they’ve shown, you know, how much they’ve changed, or they’re used when sentencing practices have changed dramatically. So sentences, for example, in drug crimes, years back in the ’80s, were extremely long.
These sentences have now been reduced, so it is unfair to those convicted at that time to comply with such long sentences. Therefore, they are, therefore, the type of other people who receive pellets or a change, right? A short of the prayer that still keeps the conviction. But those are things that you look individually.
And the forgiveness of politics that does not look at the bass of crime, its repentance or its Abse a force given to the President under the American Constitution.
Chakrabarti: Well, I assure you that in the near future, I need to make an exhibition to do, take a very analyzed eye to the total concept of presidential forgiveness. We will do it a little later.
But I take your point of view. I mean, a crime committed opposed to the political framework of the United States, to the right, opposed to the country as a whole. Paula Reid, I know that we have compiled it here and I wanted you to ask you again, from your point of view, not only as a legal researcher, but also in your contacts with the Ministry of Justice.
I’m thinking back to what Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, said in that clip that we played at the top of the show, just after he had been released from prison. His claim was it’s basically in opposition to everything Mary just described, in terms of how the justice system functioned across these 1,500 plus cases.
I mean, Rhodes claimed that he didn’t get a fair trial, that the jury wasn’t fair, that the government wasn’t held to a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. He claimed that the judges in these cases weren’t fair. He even made a claim that the government didn’t turn over evidentiary, or, excuse me, exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys.
It also made some, a confirmation regarding the testimony of perjury. I mean, what is your answer to this? Or, you know, the contacts you have within the Ministry of Justice about this wholesale complaint or even a constant rejection of the legal formula that many forgives of January 6 claim?
Reid: President Trump looks a lot, right? Everything is unfair. He is a victim. He was an unfair judge. It was an unfair jury. They are prosecutors for political motivation. It is a very similar statement. I mean, you could call if you realize that there were genuine curtain problems, curtain problems.
So here, you know, there is simply no acceptance of duty and an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the process, not only through it, but also through President Trump. And now we are seeing that the Trump Department of Justice also do that. , or on Monday, we saw that they were beginning to investigate prosecutors in particular who accused the obstruction of justice.
To say that, you know, there was a waste of resources. Because, as we know, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that obstruction of justice simply cannot be charged. Obstruction cannot be charged with respect to January 6. , that’s not what the express law was intended for, yet it turns out to be a component of an effort to undermine the entirety of this investigation into this case, to undermine legitimacy to help, you know, push back some of the complaint that Trump has received.
For really just ending all of the cases stemming from January 6th.
Part III
Chakrabarti: Today we are talking about what forgiveness has covered for President Donald Trump of other people who have been accused and declared guilty or have been convicted of crimes similar to January 6 attack against Congress. What this canopy says about that of this nation. Religion in the rule of law.
And I am very aware that, when he left the White House, President Biden also published a giant number of Indones. So, I just need to promise everyone, once again, close to the future, we are going to make an exhibition that examines the presidential forgives as a whole. But we pay attention to what the president of the Chamber said Mike Johnson, about Trump’s resolution to forgive more than 1,500 people.
And he spoke at a week-long press convention.
Mike Johnson: I think what has become transparent is that non -violent protests and other people who never have interaction were never punished. There was armament of the Ministry of Justice. There was an armed of events. You know, the prosecutions that occurred after January 6.
It was a horrible moment and a horrible bankruptcy in the history of the United States. The president has made his decision. I do not suppose them. And yes, you know, that’s the type of my philosophy, my worldview. At the time, if I could, I would say that these other people did not pay a great sanction after being imprisoned and all that depends on you.
But the president made a decision. We are moving forward. There are bigger days ahead of us. This is what fascinates us. We don’t look again. We are moving forward.
CHAKRABARTI: That’s how Speaker Mike Johnson, Paula, about this claim of weaponization of the Justice Department, with, you know, this largest investigation that the Justice Department has ever undertaken in U.S. History. I mean, I suppose what is the aftermath of the pardons been inside the Department of Justice? I mean, how are the hundreds, if not thousands of people who worked on these cases responding to that?
Reid: Well, of course it is demoralizing. Because it was a great case that was supported through videos and images, I mean thousands, thousands and thousands of evidence that make it difficult to doubt what happened or that some Americans have participated in safe behavior.
But that is the component of a bigger war in the integrity of the Ministry of Justice, what Trump has done for a long time, his supporters are also doing. I think what another here is the forgiveness of other people who dedicated violence, in Trump’s call. This sends a terrifying effect because you can send a message, well, if you dedicate violence in my name, I have my back.
And this is incredibly being worried because you also have a president whose force and immunity has just been prolonged through the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has just given him absolute immunity for everything that may just be as a quote and an official act. So, together, I think that many of those decisions and many of those occasions are deeply, deeply regarding the other folks of the Ministry of Justice.
Chakrabarti: I see reports that recommend that many other people leave the government in the Ministry of Justice. Have you noticed something similar?
Reid: So, certainly, other people left. Some of this is not unusual in transition. Some other people have also done Trump management once, not in the temperament to do it twice.
And certainly, after Trump’s re-election, I know I heard a source that runs on a legal body of labor agency, in particular leaves other people in the government and puts them into personal practice, and I said they had just been flooded. with calls. So, not only are other people demoralized, I think other people are also afraid, but there are also other people who, I think, need to stay and continue to do their work.
But the new officials of the Trump Ministry of Justice have so much distrust and deep . Protections There is a deep distrust there.
Chakrabarti: Oh, I see what you’re talking about, that the prosecutors who worked on Trump polls were fired, more than a dozen.
Reid: prosecutors.
Chakrabarti: career prosecutors. Alright. Then, recently arrived. Alright. Let’s pay attention to what President Donald Trump himself said about the movements he has undertaken in those massive covered forgives.
Once again, he spoke for a long time in Sean Hannity in Fox News. And here is a component of his response when Hannity asked him why he had pardoned the violent uprooters.
Trump: And what do you know? These people, and I do not say in all cases, but there is a lot of patriotism with those people. A lot of patriotism.
You know, they made a recording, and you know, they asked me if I would make the voice off and I did, you know, it is the number one sale. What do you call it today, album, song, whatever –
HANNITY: CD?
Trump: What you call. You don’t know. It adjusts every year, right?But it’s the number one selling song, number one on Billboard, number one on each and every one, on each one, for so long.
People understand. They sought to see those other people free themselves.
Hannity: Americans realize. You told them what you would do.
Chakrabarti: That is President Donald Trump in Fox News with Sean Hannity. And along the way, a song that other people imprisoned for their attack on Congress, including, I think, is the national anthem.
Donald Trump used this on the track of the Crusade. Now, here, officer Danny Hodges with the D. C. Metropolitan Police Department. He heard it before, because he was emotionally disturbed by the fact that the other people who physically attacked him on January 6 came here from forgiveness.
He told reporters at a press convention last week that he was still in paintings and that he had really painted the inauguration of President Donald Trump this month.
HODGES: It was kind of surreal on Inauguration Day, having all these people wearing MAGA hats. They saw me and they saw my uniform. They recognized who I was.
They thanked me for my service. And that reminded me of January 6, 2021, because that morning, I was also thanked for my service. And then they went into the ellipse and listened to Donald Trump speak. And he told them they had to fight, then he sent them to the Capitol. And once they went to the Capitol, they didn’t thank me anymore.
CHAKRABARTI: D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Danny Hodges. So Mary, you know, in the list of 100 questions that people who wish to become naturalized citizens of the United States. There is a question that says, what is the rule of law? And the answer is very, very simple. The answer is nobody is above the law.
I mean, how comprehensive do you say this concept is how the American judicial formula is meant to work?
McCord: It’s in the heart. And I’ll expand and give you some additional problems that no one is above the law, however, that’s how you sum it up in a way. I would describe it in 4 ways. It is a formula of legislation that is governed by both. This means that the other people and the government have agreed to respect. This is because there is transparency in the enactment and application of this law.
So, people, so that there is predictability and there is stability. There is a formula of rights and daily work of judgment that are fair and maintain the rights of the people. And there are, in this formula, there are impartial, competent and independent lawyers and judges, right?All of this comes in combination to lead to what you just said.
No one is above this, the government or the government. And that is what you know, this type of covers of covers that is why it is also the reason why the immunity resolution of the Supreme Court has undermined this rule of law, because it provides the president, under his office, immunity Absolute for official acts, which come with the stops.
And then the alleged immunity of the things that are possibly, you know, within the outer limits of the official acts, which is anything that we do not know precisely what are the parameters of that. And only one type of gate for force abuse in a way that is absolutely incompatible with independent adhesion to the rule of law is opening.
Chakrabarti: Paula, did you answer this or did you get to this?
Reid: Ouais. Again, I think you have to take pardons in the mixture with what the Supreme Court says while looking at the next 4 years. I mean, President Trump, his advisors, are arriving at the White House, and they will tell me, as, now they have more delights.
They’re more sophisticated about trying to achieve their aims. But then he has this elevated, expanded power given to him by the Supreme Court. And he’s sent this dog whistle, really, out to his supporters. That if you commit violence in my name, I have your back. All of these things together are deeply, deeply concerning.
CHAKRABARTI: Well, actually that makes me wonder, Mary, and I’ll turn this one back to you. The sort of wholesale criticism, or doubt that President Trump and many of his supporters now have about the justice, U.S. justice system.
Can we say that essentially, it could potentially be a mirror image of the kinds of criticisms and doubts that other people have had about the justice system. I mean, you know, there’s long been concern about racial bias in the justice system, about wrongful convictions about, you know, judge shopping, jury shopping. You know the list better than I do.
Is this simply the sort of natural continual evolution that we’ve had as Americans when it comes to maybe not our complete trust in how the rule of law functions in practice in U.S. courts?
McCord: The difference, I think, is that those criticisms, and many of them are very legitimate. You know, me and others, you know, we have run to carry out instances and policies that will reform some of the systemic problems, namely you indicated, around the racial bias within the system, and things like that.
The remedy of other people who are too deficient to pay bail, the type of thing, which I would say that they are not bail factors, not such a factor in the federal formula. Because someone who cannot pay the bail cannot be stopped, just because he cannot do it. But many states still have that bail formula that leaves other people imprisoned for long periods of time, even before they obtain a trial.
Therefore, there are valid criticisms, and there is a lot of room for reform. I would say the differences; These criticisms and attacks are founded in fact. They are based on data. There is an explanation of why, for things, it can point out genuine biases and genuine constitutional violations, such as stopping other people too deficient to pay bail. When someone with cash to pay bail will release from here, right?
They can, those things have a basis. What Donald Trump and his supporters, adding to the pardoned, to the maximum of them, I am not going to say that each and every one single to one of them, because I perceive that there is at least one user who has refused forgiveness.
But they only create from a total fabric, a false story about what happened on January 6. And we have heard it on his program, repeated through the president, repeated through some of those pardoned people. And that’s the difference. It’s just a lie that’s spreading now, because, you know, since January 6, 2021.
Really before that, before the 2020 elections, Donald Trump had already begun to say that if he did not win, because there is a manipulated formula and fraud in the elections. And 65 court instances said there is no evidence of fraud giant enough to replace the final election results.
They rejected that, Republicans, Democratic judges, etc.
CHAKRABARTI: Well, you know, I was thinking about how in the tape we’ve played of Republican lawmakers, even those who go so far as to say that they did not agree with President Trump’s decision to pardon the folks who had been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement.
His comments then imply a “but” or a “however. And then compare it with the movements of President Biden. For example, here is Senator Markwayne Mullen, Republican of Oklahoma. And on January 21, he in CNN. And and He and he said he did not necessarily agree with Trump’s resolution to forgive all uproar.
But then he said that the idea that any president had the right to factor the pardons.
MARKWAYNE MULLEN: I have my personal feelings on it, but the American people have chose to move on. And President Trump, it’s his prerogative to do this. He did not hide that he was going to pardon January 6th individuals that was wrongfully charged by the DOJ. I get what you’re saying about the violent crimes.
However, it is the President’s prerogative, as is Joe Biden’s prerogative to release the 37 murders or commute their sentences. It is the president’s prerogative to do so. Regardless of you and I agree or not, the president has authority.
And the American people chose to put President Trump in office by overwhelming support.
Chakrabarti: He is Senator Markwayne Mullen de Oklahoma. Paula, what do you think?
REID: Well, here’s the thing about the presidential pardon power, unlike some of Trump’s other moves, is it is absolute, and it is expansive, but this is not exactly what he said he would do.
He and Vance and the speaker trust other people that violent offenders would not be forgiven. And that’s precisely what he did. So I don’t think we can let him go, ‘still Joe Biden,’ he came out of it. But former President Biden gave them political talking points. prayer or do anything else.
And then pardoning many members of his family. I mean, legally it doesn’t make a difference. Trump had the power; Biden had the power. But politically, they use a lot of the moves that former President Biden made to justify their own more broad pardons. Even back two months ago, when I was talking to the Trump advisors about how they would do this.
And I said, look, this sounds like it’s going to be pretty broad. Every time it would be, but Hunter Biden, didn’t you see what he just did with Hunter Biden? It was as if he gave them like a political license to do whatever they wanted here. So again, legally, it doesn’t make a difference, but politically they’ve definitely seized on the moves that Joe Biden made to justify.
You know, doing what they said they would.
CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Well, Paula Reid, Chief Legal Correspondent for CNN. Thank you, Paula, for joining us as always.
REID: Thank you.
Chakrabarti: Mary, I need to ask you the last question. Because for me, it turns out that confidence in the rule of law is one of the key things that keeps a democracy together, right?
Because we agree as a nation that we are going to abide by this broader system that’s supposed to be equally applied to all of us. If that belief is frayed, what does that say? We just, I’m sorry, we’ve only got about 30 seconds left, Mary, but what does that say about our belief in the health or the legitimacy of our own democracy?
McCord: Well, he raises a very harmful perspective, right? Where are we going from here? And I would like to close with an appointment of one of the judges of the District Court who then had to rule a request aimed at rejecting one of the suspense matters after the forgives. And you know, he said, he has not happened here nationally.
No process of national reconciliation can begin when poor losers whose preferred candidate loses an election are glorified for disrupting constitutionally mandated proceedings in Congress and doing so with impunity. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.
This program broadcast on January 28, 2025.
Claire Donly produced, in Pointclaire Donly, is a producer.
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Meghna Chakrabarti Host, On PointMeghna Chakrabarti is the host of On Point.
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