What a difference four years makes.
Laura Ingraham on Monday chirped about President Donald Trump’s massive pardon of Jan. 6 defendants ― a radical about-face from when the Fox News host relayed her horror at the attack on the Capitol as it happened. (Watch the video below.)
After his swearing-in Monday, Trump granted clemency to about 1,500 people, including those convicted of violent crimes, who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the election fairly won by former President Joe Biden.
In a chat with Fox News colleague Jesse Watters, Ingraham called the pardons “really big” as Trump checked off his to-do list on his first day back in office.
“1,600 pardons for J6ers who were arrested,” Ingraham said. “And a lot of them were sentenced to two, three, four, five years in jail. His point is, documents were destroyed, which they were, and these people never had the real chance to put on a proper defense. That was really big.”
It’s unclear which documents Ingraham was referring to, although the Supreme Court did issue an opinion that obstruction charges against some Jan. 6 defendants needed to include proof that they had destroyed or tampered with documents and evidence.
In summing up Trump’s post-inauguration rush of executive orders and pardons, Ingraham exclaimed: “This was the greatest hits of Donald Trump, and he enjoyed every minute.”
She characterized Jan. 6 in far less buoyant terms as the siege unfolded.
In a text made public, Ingraham told Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows: “The president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
On the air, she condemned those who broke the law but at times appeared to promote the conspiracy theory that antifa was behind the riots.
Later, however, she completely whitewashed what had transpired, characterizing the attempted overthrow of the election as “old ladies walking through the halls of Congress taking selfies” in 2023.
So it was no surprise that as the GOP celebrated Trump’s first night back in office, Ingraham appeared to celebrate his stroke-of-the-pen clemency for Jan. 6 convicts.
We Won’t Back Down
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But it was disappointing just the same.
H/T Mediaite