This story was reported and written by VPM News.
More than 80 Virginia residents have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. If incoming President Donald Trump follows through on promises he’s repeatedly made, some of the accused or convicted could receive pardons.
The president-elect has mentioned the potential pardons on social media, and in interviews with NBC’s Kristen Welker during Meet the Press and Time magazine.
During the TV appearance, Trump addressed a range of issues, like tariffs and possible legal action against perceived antagonists — including members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. In Time, he said the J6 pardons would be done on a case-by-case basis and begin within the “first nine minutes” of taking office.
In the past, he reportedly considered blanket pardons for people accused of participating in the insurrection.
The issue’s split along partisan lines to the extent that in 2022, the Republican National Committee censured then-GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for serving on the J6 committee. The censure, among other things, accused Democrats of attempting to “neuter our national defense.”
Charges against Virginians accused of participating in the J6 riot range from disorderly conduct and destruction of property to assaulting law enforcement officers, according to a database compiled by NPR. The FBI most recently arrested a Virginia resident on Dec. 18 who "allegedly interfered with multiple law enforcement officers at the Capitol."
To date, more than 1,500 people nationwide have been charged in connection to the attack.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
If Trump grants the pardons, individuals convicted of felonies would regain their right to vote and own firearms. That could include former Rocky Mount Police Sgt. Thomas Robertson, who was resentenced in September to six years in prison.
“This really is fundamentally about how we do law enforcement,” said Brandy Faulkner, a Virginia Tech political science professor, while discussing the potential pardons. “Why is this being seen as an exception? If it weren't about a presidential election, if it were about some other crime, would we even be having this conversation? I think it highlights a lot of the inequities in our criminal justice system.”
President Joe Biden recently has leaned on his pardon powers, granting clemency to his son, Hunter, as well as about 1,500 people who were released from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic and put in home confinement. Later in December, he also commuted the sentences of 37 people on death row.
Faulkner differentiated between Biden’s actions and what Trump has signaled he’ll do after taking office: The president-elect is looking at giving pardons to a “group of people who were involved in the same activity and are facing charges for those activities.” The people Biden has focused on were individuals convicted of unrelated crimes.
Mary McCord — an attorney, professor and writer with insight into domestic terrorism and the American militia movement — said the judges who have tried J6 cases frequently describe the insurrection as an attempt to undermine the electoral process and disrupt the transition of power.
“I do think the implications for emboldening armed individuals, armed groups who are antigovernment, will to a certain extent depend on whether he pardons anybody — and if he does pardon anybody, whether he does a blanket pardon for everyone or he draws the line,” she said. “For example, if he were to determine just to pardon those convicted of misdemeanors that don't involve attacks on law enforcement or destruction of property or seditious conspiracy, I think that's going to be far less emboldening than if he were to engage in blanket pardons.”
A number of militia groups participated in the Capitol attack, and similar homegrown groups have proliferated in the commonwealth. Alongside the Amherst, Bedford and Campbell county militias, a group in Lynchburg held its inaugural event in the fall. Outgoing U.S. Rep. Bob Good (R–5th) was in attendance and led the group in prayer.
During the pandemic’s first year, groups in Nelson and Floyd counties organized when then-Gov. Ralph Northam proposed new statewide gun restrictions.
In October, the federal Department of Homeland Security said the threat of domestic extremism “remains high” — and is among the nation’s top security issues. But with an incoming Republican administration, the possibility of left-wing groups perpetrating violence has increased, according to Amy Cooter — the director of research at Middlebury College's Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism.
“I’m honestly a little bit worried that we're going to see an increase in left-wing accelerationism in response to Trump,” Cooter said, referring to an ideology that exists across the political spectrum advocating for violence and disorder to collapse the federal government. “I know we're already moving to define domestic terrorism differently during the [second] Trump administration, to look in that direction much more. So, I think that domestic terrorism itself in four years may actually look different, but also be defined a bit differently.”
Ten Virginia residents convicted of crimes for their actions in the riot are scheduled to be sentenced in early 2025.
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