Trump Senate Allies Pushing Back Against Trump J6 Pardons

I have been waiting to see how our senators would react to the J6 pardons, and we are finally getting some feedback.

The news for Trump is not all good. A key ally of Trump in the Senate is now pushing back against the pardons.

Trump’s Pardons

For most of the pardons, I don’t think people are concerned.

The issue is very specifically the pardons of the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and other violent offenders who were proven to have beaten cops.

Trump tried to push back, saying they were minor offenses, but if beating a cop with a fire extinguisher, club, and flagpole are mild offenses, well, then I think we need to redefine these types of assaults.

I have stood my ground that there are probably about five or six dozen people who should still be behind bars, and we are finally seeing some Republicans distance themselves from these pardons.

Vance Takes Trump’s Side

Vice President JD Vance, only days before taking office, had stated, “If you protested peacefully on Jan. 6 and you’ve had [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

However, Vance flipped his narrative after Donald Trump issued the pardons, actually giving Trump a legitimate out, even though I do not believe his reasoning to be true. Vance stated, “What the president said consistently on the campaign … is that he was going to look at a case by case basis … and that’s exactly what we did.

“We looked at 1,600 cases. And the thing that came out of it, Margaret, is that there was a massive denial of due process of liberty, and a lot of people were denied their constitutional rights. I think he made the right decision.”

I say it is not true because only a few days earlier, Vance stated they would be looking at these cases in a case-by-case manner and that violent offenders should remain in jail. Are we to believe that in 72 hours leading up to inauguration, Donald Trump and JD Vance, as well as Trump’s attorneys, were able to scour through 1,600 files to review these cases and then write an executive order for the pardons? Sorry, I am not buying it.

Senators Push Back

I was not surprised at all to Senator Graham (R-S.C.) push back on these pardons, as he called Trump out before for what took place on January 6. Graham stated, “He had the legal authority to do it. But 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.

“Biden pardoned half his family going out the door. I think most Americans, if this continues, to see this as an abuse of the pardon power, that we’ll revisit the pardon power of the president if this continues. But as to pardoning violent people who beat up cops, I think that’s a mistake.”

Graham concluded, “President Trump at least said, I’m going to do this. I don’t like this. I don’t like it on either side. I think the public doesn’t like it either. So if this continues, if this is the norm, there may be an effort to rein in the pardon power of the president as an institution.”

Graham is right… Trump did say he was going to do this and law enforcement was not happy about it. In fact, one major union that supported Trump in all three elections has already issued a statement calling out Trump. While I believe this will disappear from the news cycle shortly, I firmly believe that come the 2026 and 2028 elections, this will haunt Trump and the Republican Party.