Democrats Introduce Resolution Condemning Donald Trump's Jan. 6 Pardons

WASHINGTON — All Senate Democrats but one co-sponsored a symbolic resolution condemning President Donald Trump for pardoning rioters who have attacked police. 

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who recently visited Trump at his Florida estate, didn’t join his colleagues in support of the move. His office did not immediately return a request for comment.

The resolution, which would have no practical effect if the Senate adopted it, is narrow in scope, stating simply that “the Senate disapproves of any pardons for individuals who were found guilty of assaulting Capitol Police officers.”

Trump’s sweeping clemency action on his first day in office pardoned everyone charged with crimes connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, including the most violent offenders who attacked police. The only exceptions were for 14 members of militant groups charged with seditious conspiracy; Trump commuted their prison sentences while stopping short of a full pardon. 

Democrats’ resolution focuses only on the subset of rioters who attacked police. Of the more than 1,600 rioters charged with crimes, more than 600 were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement, including more than 169 charged with using a weapon or injuring an officer. 

“I refuse to allow President Trump to rewrite what happened on January 6th — armed insurrectionists, incited by Trump himself, broke into the U.S. Capitol and violently assaulted Capitol Police officers in their attempt to overthrow a free and fair election,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the lead sponsor of the resolution, said in a press release. “Insurrectionists cracked the ribs of police officers and smashed spinal disks. Donald Trump’s pardons are a wholesale endorsement of political violence — as long as it serves Donald Trump.”

Fetterman declined to answer questions about the Jan. 6 pardons last week. He responded instead by criticizing press reports about the possibility of him switching parties — something he denied — and reports about him unknowingly taking a photo at the Capitol with a man who was charged with participating in the Jan. 6 attack.

Murray’s office said the senator would ask the Senate for “unanimous consent” to adopt the resolution. A single senator can block the request.

No Republicans co-sponsored the Democratic resolution, either. Just a handful of GOP senators have spoken out against Trump’s pardons, while most of the party has stayed quiet.

Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump made a mistake pardoning the violent Jan. 6 offenders but he conceded Trump had the power to do so.

“He had the legal authority to do it but I fear that you will get more violence,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “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 OK thing to do.”

But Vice President JD Vance defended Trump’s blanket pardons for violent Jan. 6 pardons, even though he said two weeks ago that “obviously” some of them should not get pardons.

“I think he made the right decision,” Vance said of Trump during an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“Violence against a police officer is not justified, but that doesn’t mean that you should have Merrick Garland’s weaponized Department of Justice expose you to incredibly unfair process, to denial of constitutional rights,” Vance added of people who received jury trials. 

“We rectified a wrong, and I stand by it,” he continued.