JD Vance’s plan for pardoning the right January 6 prisoners doesn’t sound as “simple” as he says.
Though Vice President-elect Vance told “Fox News Sunday” that people who “committed violence” during the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned, he offered some interesting exceptions in a tweet later on Sunday.
During his conversation with anchor Shannon Bream, the former senator from Ohio tried to draw a distinction between two types of protestors who descended upon the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6.
“I think it’s very simple, look if you protested peacefully on January 6th, and you had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned,” he told Bream. “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
“There’s a little bit of a gray area there,” Vance noted, however.
“But we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law, and there are a lot of people we think in the wake of January 6th who were prosecuted unfairly,” he went on. “We need to rectify that.”
Vance seemed to shed light on what he meant by “gray area” while responding to a critic on X not long after his interview aired.
Though the “Hillbilly Elegy” author described “violence” as the dividing line that morning on TV, online, he said Jan. 6 participants who were “provoked” or had “garbage trials” should also be considered for pardons from President-elect Donald Trump.
While reminding everyone that he’s “been defending these guys for years” and has even donated to Jan. 6 defense funds, he wrote about “federal informants in the crowd.”
“Do they get a pardon? I don’t think so,” he said. “The president saying he’ll look at each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback.”
“I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up,” Vance continued. “Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial.”
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Vance’s initial statement seemed to be in step with what Trump promised to the Jan. 6 prisoners, both on the campaign trail and after winning the election.
During a December interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the incoming president said freeing his followers would be a priority on his “first day” in office but that he would stop short of pardoning people who acted “radical” or “crazy” during the chaos.