Democrats vow to hold Republicans accountable for Trump's pardons of Jan. 6 defendants

Congressional Democrats have promised to hold Republicans accountable for President Trump pardoning more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants on the day he was sworn into office.

On Tuesday, Senate Democrats offered a resolution condemning the pardons and commutations of those found guilty of assaulting police during the riot. When Republicans blocked it, Democrats said it showed they don’t care lack of about police.

“How the heck can anyone object to a resolution that says we should condemn pardoning those who assaulted police officers? Where’s the law and order crowd?” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said. “Where’s the people who talk about defunding the police? How do you think every police officer feels when one of their brethren is assaulted and then they’re pardoned?”

Republicans scoffed that former President Biden’s recent pardons were more worthy of shame than President Trump’s.

Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican noted that Mr. Biden pardoned 8,000 people and in his final days in office granted clemency to “37 of 40 of the worst killers on death row.”

“President Biden said time and time again, ‘Oh, he wouldn’t pardon his son, Hunter. No, no.’ Not only did he pardon Hunter for the crimes for which he had been convicted, he pardoned him for 10 years of his additional criminal activity, which has not yet been discovered,” Mr. Barasso said. “Then, minutes before leaving office on Inauguration Day, Joe Biden gave preemptive blanket partners to five more members of his own family.”

He knocked Mr. Biden for commuting the sentences of two men who murdered a police officer and commuted the sentence of a killer who executed two FBI agents.

“The FBI Agents Association said Biden’s pardon was ‘a cruel betrayal to the families and colleagues of these fallen agents [and] a slap in the face of law enforcement,’” Mr. Barasso said.

Among those pardoned by Trump were 169 people who pled guilty to assaulting police officers at the Capitol that day.

Senate Democrats’ resolution was the party’s latest move to make Mr. Trump’s pardons a lasting political issue.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, said Monday on social media: “Pardoning criminals who violently attacked the Capitol endangers law enforcement and communities throughout America. … We will hold House Republicans accountable for their reckless complicity.”