President Trump pardoned the rioters on January 6, many of whom violently attacked police officers. The rioters were convicted through U. S. Tribunals with due process. But the pardons undermine those judicial failures and the concept of rule of law in the United States.
Paula Reid, chief legal correspondent at CNN.
Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.
Part I
Meghna Chakrabarti: Hours after being released from Federal last week, Enrique Tarrio asked for Alex Jones’ show. Jones is a far-right host and conspiracy theorist who claimed that the U. S. government organized the September 11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing, bombing, bombing, bombing of Oklahoma, and the 1969 moon landing.
Jones also brutally transmitted members of the Circle of relatives of young people killed in the shooting of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. He discovered guilty for this. And a Pass trial ordered him to pay more than one billion dollars in damage to Sandy Hook’s parents. Jones said bankruptcy rather. Now, Alex Jones also partially financed Donald Trump’s meetings, who took his position in Washington, D. C. , on January 6, 2021.
He supported efforts to overthrow the 2020 elections and spoke with Trump’s supporters on January 6 before this crowd was attacked by the American Capitol. Jones called it, quotes, a turning point in American history, the best appointment. Now, why do I the story of Alex Jones? Well, because it has to do with Enrique Tarrio.
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He is the leader of the far-right Defense Force group, the Proud Children. The attack on the U. S. Capitol U. S. And this is what Tarrio said on the Jones show.
Enrique Tarrio: Success will be a retaliation, you know, we have to do everything in our strength to ensure that the next 4 years prepare for us for the next hundred years.
Chakrabarti: The 22 years of Tarrio were the longest penalty of almost another 1,600 people who were accused of January 6. Tarrio not physically at the Capitol on the day of the attack.
In fact, he had been arrested two days before in a separate and tidy case outside Washington, D. C. A complete forgiveness of President Donald Trump.
That’s when he called Alex Jones.
TARRIO: I’m happy that the president’s focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you, I’m not going to play by those rules. The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars. They pardoned the J6 committee, fine. In this country, our case proves that you could be imprisoned for anything.
Chakrabarti: The investigation of January 6 was the largest carried out through the Ministry of Justice in the history of the United States. The first day of his presidency, President Trump disappointed this through the issuance of pardons or switches for more than 1,500 people accused in the attack of January 6. Trump signed the order in his same old black Sharpie.
DONALD TRUMP: So this is a big one. Anything you want to explain about this? We hope they come out tonight, frankly.
Chakrabarti: On January 6, 2021, rioters stormed the American capitol, and they broken the building, defecated in its rooms. They threatened the American government and the other folks who serve it, and they temporarily stopped the confirmation procedure of the electoral vote constituted constitutionally.
Many have also violently attacked police officers. Trump’s general forgives do not distinguish between those who have done and have not committed physical violence to the Capitol. Even if some 140 police officers were brutally attacked that day. And some 172 defendants begged the fault of having attacked the application of the laws.
The officer [Daniel] Hodges tried to maintain the line on January 6 at the Capitol. He still works for the DC Metropolitan Police Department, and spoke with journalists after Trump forgave the other people who attacked him.
Daniel Hodges: They called me a traitor, telling my oath.
I hit myself, I crushed, I kicked, I punched, I went around. Someone reached for my visor, tried to touch me.
And all these people were just pardoned by Donald Trump, who says that they were the real victims. That they were the patriots. I don’t understand how anyone can believe that.
Chakrabarti: Trump’s actions, which are not surprising, do not comply with what their own vice president said it happens in the days just before Trump’s inauguration.
Roughly two weeks ago, in mid-January, then vice president-elect JD Vance was on Fox News. And he seemed to suggest that people who committed violence would not get pardoned.
JD Vance: I think it’s very simple. Look, if you are protesting peacefully on January 6, and the Department of Justice of Merrick Garland has been treated as a member of a gang, they forgive him.
If he committed violence that day, he doesn’t forgive him. And there is a little gray domain there.
CHAKRABARTI: Clearly, that’s not what Trump did. He issued that blanket pardon. Now, the mass pardons were not universally welcomed by Republicans. A few dared to speak out. Here’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
He was on NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: I fear that you will get more violence. 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 okay thing to do.
CHAKRABARTI: Jackson Reffitt told ABC News that he’s concerned too.
His father sentenced seven years in criminal for the attack on January 6. And this happened after Jackson turned his own father into authorities. Now his father is free.
JACKSON REFFITT: I love him, and I wanted him to get help in prison, but the only thing he’s got is more radicalized. He does not need more contact with these far-right extreme militias that are going to validate him.
He wants a resource and this forgiveness will not. This will validate and justify all the measures you have taken before this point. And this is what scares me, who knows what this validation can carry.
Chakrabarti: another man, Stewart Rhodes, on the most sensible Trump switching list.
He is the founder and leader of the extreme right -wing group, The Oath Keepers. It has served for 18 years in a seditious plot opposite to the United States in relation to the attack on January 6. After being released this month from Maryland. Jail, Rhodes waited outside the D. C. For other defendants, and then spoke with the media.
Stewart Rhodes: I think it’s an intelligent day for the United States that is, all errors are defeated. So, none of those other people have been here first. None of them have been attempted in a fair proof.
Reporter: And what is it, what would you say to the Capitol Police who got hurt in this area?
Rhodes: What do you mean, what am I saying?
Reporter: I mean, there’s Capitol police who are seriously injured.
RHODES: Okay, and?
REPORTER: And they’re concerned that people are not going to have to face any charges for.
Rhodes: No, they faced charges, but as I said, you are supposed to be without guilt until you have been guilty, until you received a trial just before a fair jury that this will keep the government to a rule for moderate doubt, before a trial passing on who is also fair.
It will make the government comply with the burden of evidence to deliver exculpatory evidence and to testify. Until you get that fair judgment, it is presumed that you are not blamed until the opposite is demonstrated.
CHAKRABARTI: After his release, Rhodes also paid a visit to the U.S. Capitol, the very building he had attacked four years earlier, apparently to advocate for the release of another Oath Keeper.
A judge has since barred Rhodes from entering the Capitol or Washington, D.C. without court permission. Now, we wanted to go over that history because it has been four years since that unique and terrible day in U.S. history, January 6th, 2021.
And with these blanket pardons for people who tried to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, something that’s been going on for centuries in this country, and they tried to do it, in many cases, violently, that calls into the question this country’s faith in the entire concept of the rule of law.
So this is what we’re going through to communicate with today. But let’s start with some main points about this forgiveness, or those forgivenesses, and we’ll move on to Paula Reid. He is a leading legal correspondent at CNN. Paula, it’s wonderful to see you again.
Paula Reid: And thank you so much for having me.
Chakrabarti: And thank you for listening to this story that we feel very strongly, we seek to return.
I mean, with that background in mind, spend a minute giving us more details. I’ve been saying pardons and commutations, but it was overwhelmingly one of those things. What actually happened?
Reid: Yes, it’s true. Look, a pen of a pen, has just finished 1,600 cases, since January 6, in another 3 ways.
Most of the people, the overwhelming majority of people, who’d been convicted, received pardons. 14 people were selected for commutations. That means their sentence is wiped out, they can walk out of jail, but they still have that conviction. But there’s going to be a process to review those commutations, and some of those 14 people could very well also receive a pardon.
And the last organization was composed of other people whose business is still underway. These instances will be rejected. But what was promised to us is a type of nuanced approach, violent opposite to non -violent. But it was transparent in recent months, making reports and arguing with Trump’s advisors, who would probably be much broader. As they were so determined to do so from day one, and they were refractory to any type of process, you know, an individual evaluation, in case of case, would take time.
Chakrabarti: Were it his advisers who resisted the procedure or President Trump himself?
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REID: So Trump had vowed to do this on day one. So his advisors tasked with figuring out, okay, how do we do this? The one thing they said is we’re not going to do a case-by-case basis. This isn’t going to be the usual process.
And I said, okay, well, how are you going to make that distinction, which Trump is singing, he needs to make?-Violent criminals. Because it is a very violent event. And if you don’t make a basis on a case-by-case basis, it’s hard to tell the difference.
Because even if you said that all the defendants of aggression will be forgiven. Well, it is a very wide variety of driving that is invoiced under aggression. In addition, it has other people such as Enrique Tarrio, who has referred, that still did not go to the violence that directed it from afar and also won one of the most maximum sanctions.
Therefore, it was transparent that I was going to take a lot of work. There are many nuances, if you need to analyze violent instead of non -violent. But Trump sought to send a message. And he just said, you know what, let’s do it in this way. Therefore, anything much broader than he had pointed out.
Part II
Chakrabarti: Today, we are talking about the very concept of the rule of law in the United States and that the general graces granted through President Donald Trump to all the defendants and convicted or who declared themselves guilty, in relation to their participation in their participation in The riots of January 6, 2021 in the Capitol, that those general thanks say about the very concept of the rule of law in this country.
I joined today through Paula Reid, CNN’s legal leader of the leader. And before I go any further, I just need to give something that I said a little bit earlier. He had argued that the leader of the oath keepers, Stewart Rhodes, had decided to us through a trial that he needed permission to enter the Capitol or Washington, D. C.
Well, it turns out just yesterday, that requirement was revoked by another judge, so he no longer needs permission to walk the very halls or enter halls of Congress or enter the city of Washington, D.C. So let’s hear a little bit again from an actual member of law enforcement.
He is the former police officer of Capitol Harry Dunn. He at the attack site on January 6, 2021. Now Dunn ran without luck for his purposes last year. The Democratic Primary of Congress lost in the 3rd District of Maryland. And that, or simply last week, expressed his deep frustration for the forgives.
Harry Dunn: The Republican Party has claimed that it is law and order. However, many lawmakers have been silent and have refused to back down in opposition to Donald Trump’s moves, making it incredibly difficult to take this claim seriously.
Chakrabarti: Well, here’s President Trump himself and him on Fox News with Sean Hannity, and Hannity asked him why he had forgiven rioters who violently attacked or had violently attacked police.
TRUMP: It would be very, very cumbersome to go and look, you know how many people we’re talking about? 1,500 people, almost all of them are, should not have been, this should not have happened. And the other thing is this. Some of those people with the police troop, but they were very minor incidents, okay? You know, they get built up by that, a couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time.
They were very minor incidents, and it was time. You have murderers in Philadelphia, you have murderers in Los Angeles that don’t even get any time. They don’t even collect them and they know they’re there to be collected. And then they go on television and act holier than thou about this one or that one.
You had 1,500 other people who suffered. It is many other people.
Chakrabarti: President Donald Trump in Fox News with Sean Hannity. I take Mary McCord to verbal exchange now. She is executive director of the Institute of Constitutional Defense and Protection. She is also a guest law professor at the Law Center at Georgetown University.
She is an Acting Assistant Attorney General for Homeland Security at the U. S. Department of Justice from 2016 to 2017 and held other positions in the highest echelons of the federal judicial system. Mary McCord, Welcome to the point.
Mary McCord: Thank you, Meghna. Enchanted to be here.
Chakrabarti: Minor incidents? Were these minor incidents in physical attacks against the application on January 6?
McCord: No, they weren’t. And it is enough to ask the many judges, the judges of the Federal District Court of the District Court here in the district of Columbia, who discussed those almost 1,600 cases, saw the evidence several times, you know, the violent attacks opposed application agents of the law, the erection of a gallows to verify to suspend Mike Pence, the destruction of the property and the cetera.
And also did the rest of us. We saw video, we heard audio, we saw social media bragging about it. All of this. So, yes, were there some people who were charged with misdemeanors, whose crimes were not violent, and who entered and trespassed and things like that? Yes, there were some portion of that nearly 1,600 whose crimes were not violent.
And that’s, you know, why I think other people like J. D. Vance says those are the other people who are likely to be pardoned, but Trump has gone so much further than that, adding forgiveness that you know, over six hundred people charged with assaulting or resisting or obstructing the police. And 174 of them did so with a fatal or harmful weapon.
We are talking about swords, axes, axes, knives, etc. So, a minor incident. 140 staff seriously injured.
Chakrabarti: Then, right, right. So I’m glad you have pointed out that we have all noticed. Because I think, I mean, other people do not yet do it or have not noticed the total video or the express movements you are talking about. But the point remains that the attack of January 6 remains one of the most productive documented documents, through videos and audio and eye accounts, mass crimes in the history of the United States.
And yet President Trump has somehow, in the minds and eyes of his voters, shifted the criminality as he sees it, away from the people who attacked Congress on January 6th and towards the entire justice system of this country. I mean, just listen to President Trump again. This is from his interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News just six days ago, Wednesday, January 22nd.
Just two days after he delivered those pardons, Sean Hannity asked the president why he had pardoned others who were cited, convicted or concerned about incidents where they were violent with police. And this is the first component of what Trump said.
TRUMP: A number of reasons. Number one, they were in there for three and a half years, a long time, and in many, solitary confinement, treated like nobody’s ever been treated, treated so badly.
They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote, because they knew the election was rigged, and they were protesting the vote. And that’s, you should be allowed to protest a vote. You should be allowed to. You know, the day, when the day comes.
Hannity: But you shouldn’t be to invade the Capitol.
Trump: No. Ready? Most of the other people were surely innocent. Okay, forgetting all this, those other people have served horribly, for a long time.
Chakrabarti: Well, then, Mary, first, there were many, many other people in Washington that day, and also that they had approached the Capitol, which protested peacefully. Just for being clear, as far as we know, in him, in him, do you know, only around 1,600 cases that the Department of Justice brought, one of those other people who were outside the Capitol that protested peacefully?
McCORD: I don’t believe so. Unless they were going into restricted areas. Like I said, some were nonviolent, but there were many, many, many who actually were engaged in violence and many who pleaded guilty to that.
CHAKRABARTI: Right. And in fact, in the rally beforehand, no one was arrested for their actions then, right?
That is completely in line with the freedom of speech and expression in this country. But Trump here, the President here is saying that these, the people that the Justice Department charged were the worst treated in U.S. history. I don’t know exactly what he’s talking about there, but, I mean, what’s your response to the President?
Even that.
McCORD: Well, it really seems like this is something that the president is just making up. He’s making up because I think part of the reason he issued these pardons was to really just support his own false narrative about the 2020 election that he has never ever given up on. He’s never ever given up on his claims that it was a rigged election that Joe Biden did not legitimately win.
And so I think part of this is to justify those lies. I mean, we just listened to that clip of him saying as much, about these people had the right to protest a rigged election. There’s no evidence of that. And you know, in terms of their treatment, the judges in the district of Columbia. You know, followed all of the proper procedures and ensured the constitutional rights of the defendants in front of them.
Let me tell you what it means. This means getting other people to have a lawyer. If they can’t, one bears their name. If they can, one. He is a lawyer of his choice. These attorneys have the option of winning pretrial applications, seeking to suppress evidence, seeking to exclude evidence, seeking to reject the case.
If they think you’ve been brought in unjustly, those judges provide you with what’s called normal procedure, what is this process, right?To bring requests, have a defense. Those who sought to plead for guilt have read their rights. They give up those rights. He pleaded for guilt, accepted the facts that would be proposed, which were proposed through the prosecutors. Because a plea to blame means that the prosecutor says that if this matter is tried, here are the facts that the government would prove.
And the judge looks at each defendant and says, do you agree that those, you know, with those facts. And these are voluntary guilty pleas which there were over a thousand people who pleaded guilty. Those who decide to go to trial, their attorneys are able to participate in choosing the jurors for that trial.
They are capable of defending this judgment. The defendant, if he chooses, may testify at this trial. And the verdict demands a unanimous verdict. Judges then take data before sentencing. And they come with all of this to make their prayer.
And I just want to note that judges appointed by Democrats, Democratic presidents, Republican presidents, and Donald Trump himself in his first term have uniformly, at sentencing, decried and denounced the violence and the seriousness of these crimes denounced what was done there and indicated that the attempt here was not just about violence, but also to overturn the results of the election.
Chakrabarti: I am very happy that you mention it, Mary, because I wanted to ask that question.
I mean, I perceive a lot of why this goal exists, in particular, you know, among the political types in Washington and in the media, well, Trump probably wouldn’t have had to forgive the other people who violently attacked law enforcement. But it doesn’t distinguish, in a sense, between the two that lack the point, does it?
Because, yes, I mean, physical violence is abhorrent, anyway, but also a type of political violence, which is also, abhorrent in this country, which is necessarily what happened in January, when we do us. Other people who have declared themselves guilty, you know, at the tariffs of seeking to cancel the 2020 elections and things, however, in the media we are addressed to the police officer?
We the point?
McCord: I think you are surely right on this issue, Meghna, because even for those who were not violent, you know, they were persecuted because they have violated the legislation, the legislation that are put in a public security position, the safety of the members of the members of the members of the Congress, those who enter and abandon the construction of the Capitol to do their homework and things as the constitutionally required assembly of the two Congress cameras to certify the electoral vote.
And, you know, just to mention some things that judges said at sentencing, you know, one judge said the court cannot condone the shameless attempts by the defendant and anyone else to misinterpret or misrepresent what happened. It cannot condone the notion that those who broke the law on January 6th did nothing wrong or that those duly convicted with all the safeguards of the United States constitution, including a right to trial by jury in felony cases, are political prisoners or hostages.
And then he declared on January 6, a mob of other people invaded and occupied the American Capitol in order to disrupt the nonviolent movement of force mandated through the Constitution and our Republican heritage. It was not patriotism. It was the antithesis of patriotism. So, it’s, you know, a Republican to judge over the fence for almost 40 years.
And to return to his point, there was no explanation why for one of those thanks. I think that other people tell themselves, well, if they deserve to be thanks, they deserve not to apply to other people who, you already know, have committed acts of violence, but a grace is an act of mercy that sometimes earns when an accused He accepted responsibility, replaced his life for the best, possibly would have had a very long pain.
The pellets are after the user who has already finished their prayer. And they contributed to the network and have demonstrated, you know, how much they have changed or used when the practices of discovering the penalty have changed radically. Therefore, sanctions, for example, in drug crimes, years ago in the 1980s, were incredibly long.
These prayers have now been reduced, so it is unfair to other people condemned at that time to fulfill such long prayers. So they’re the kind of other people who get pardons or changing, right?A shortening of the sentence that still maintains the sentence. But those are things that you look at individually.
And the forgiveness of politics that does not look at the bass of crime, its repentance or its Abse a force given to the President under the American Constitution.
Chakrabarti: Well, I assure you that in the near future, I need to make an exhibition to do, take a very analyzed eye to the total concept of presidential forgiveness. We will do it a little later.
But I perceive your point of view. I mean, a crime committed opposite to the political framework of the United States, don’t you oppose the country as a whole? Paulla Reid, I know you are back here and I looked again for a consultation, from your point of view, not only as a lawyer, but also in the context of your contacts with the Ministry of Justice.
I think that Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the cuppers, said in this clip that we played in the most sensible show, just after being released from prison. His statement that he is necessarily opposed to everything Maria has just described, in terms of the operation of the judicial formula in those 1,500 more cases.
I mean, Rhodes said he had not received a fair trial, that the jury is not fair, that the government did not remain popular without any reasonable. He said the judges in those cases were not alone. He even said that the Government had not given evidence or, apologize, evidence of defense to defense lawyers.
He also made some, a claim about perjury testimony. I mean, what’s your response to that? Or, you know, contacts that you have within the Justice Department about this wholesale criticism or even just flat-out rejection of the legal system that many of the January 6th pardonees are claiming?
Reid: Sounds very similar to President Trump, right? Everything is unfair. He is a victim. He was an unfair judge. It was an unfair jury. They are politically motivated prosecutors. It is a very similar statement. I mean that I only appeal if it takes into account that there were genuine hardware problems, hardware problems.
So here, you know, there is simply no acceptance of duty and an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the process, not only through it, but also through President Trump. And now we are seeing that the Trump Department of Justice also do that. , or on Monday, we saw that they were beginning to investigate prosecutors in particular who accused the obstruction of justice.
To say that, you know, there was a waste of resources. Because, as we know, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that obstruction of justice simply cannot be charged. Obstruction cannot be charged with respect to January 6. , that’s not what the express law was intended for, yet it turns out to be a component of an effort to undermine the entirety of this investigation into this case, to undermine legitimacy to help, you know, push back some of the complaint that Trump has received.
To finish all the instances resulting from January 6.
Part III
CHAKRABARTI: Today we are talking about what President Donald Trump’s blanket pardoning of people who were charged and either pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes related to the January 6th attack on Congress. What that blanket pardon says about this nation’s faith in the rule of law.
And I’m well aware that, when he left the White House, President Biden also issued a giant number of Indonesians. So I just need to promise everybody, again, in the future, we’re going to make a show that you look at presidential pardons as a whole. But let’s pay attention to what House Speaker Mike Johnson said about Trump’s resolution to pardon more than 1,500 people.
And he spoke at a week-long press convention.
MIKE JOHNSON: I think what was made clear all along is that peaceful protests and people who engage in that should never be punished. There was a weaponization of the Justice Department. There was a weaponization of the events. You know, the prosecutions that happened after January 6th.
It was a horrible time and a horrible bankruptcy in American history. The president has made his decision. I don’t suppose so. And yes, you know, that’s the kind of my philosophy, my worldview. At the time, if I could, I would say that those other people didn’t pay a huge penalty after they were incarcerated and that’s all up to you.
But the president made a decision. We are moving forward. There are bigger days ahead of us. This is what fascinates us. We don’t look again. We are moving forward.
Chakrabarti: This is how President Mike Johnson, Paula, on this armed claim of the Department of Justice, you know, this greater investigation that the Department of Justice has undertaken in the history of the United States. I suppose what are the consequences of the internal degrees of the department. Justice? I mean, how do the hundreds respond, if not thousands, other people who have worked in those cases?
Reid: Well, of course it’s demoralizing. Because it was a big case that was supported through videos and images, I mean thousands, thousands, thousands of pieces of evidence that make it hard to doubt that it happened or that some Americans have engaged in safe conduct.
But that is part of a larger war against the integrity of the Ministry of Justice, which Trump has done for a long time, and that they are also doing their supporters. I think what is a bit different here is the forgiveness of other people than They dedicated to violence, in Trump’s call. This sends a terrifying effect because you can send a message, well, if you dedicate violence in my name, I cover your backs.
And this is incredibly worried because you also have a president whose strength and immunity have extended through the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has just given an absolute immunity for everything that can be like an official event and act. So, together, I think that many of those decisions and many of those occasions are deeply regarding the other people of the Ministry of Justice.
CHAKRABARTI: I’m seeing reporting that suggests that a lot of people are leaving government service in the Justice Department. Have you seen something similar?
REID: So certainly, people have left. Some of that is common in the transition. Some people have also done the Trump administration once, not in the mood to do it twice.
And certainly, after Trump re -elected, I know that I heard from a source that works in a legal body of workers’ agency, particularly takes out other people from the government and puts them into personal practice, and said they were flooded with calls. So, other people are not only demoralized, I think that other people are also afraid, but there are also other people who think they need to stay and continue doing their job.
But the new officials of the Trump Ministry of Justice have so much distrust and deep . Protections There is a deep distrust there.
CHAKRABARTI: Oh, I see what you’re talking about, that prosecutors who worked on Trump investigations have been just recently fired, more than a dozen.
Reid: Prosecutors.
Chakrabarti: career prosecutors. Alright. Then, recently arrived. Alright. Let’s pay attention to what President Donald Trump himself said about the movements he has undertaken in those massive covered forgives.
Once again, he spoke for a long time in Sean Hannity in Fox News. And here is a component of his answer when Hannity asked him why he had forgiven the violent uproar.
Trump: And what do you know? These people, and I don’t say in any case, but there is a lot of patriotism in those people.
You know, they made a recording, and you know, they asked me if I would do the voiceover and I, you know, it’s the number one sale. What is it called today, album, song, whatever?
Hannity: CD?
Trump: What do you call it. You don’t know. It adjusts every year, right?But it’s the number one selling song, number one on Billboard, number one on each and every one, for so long.
People understand. They sought to see those other people break free.
Hannity: Americans notice. You told them what you would do.
Chakrabarti: He is President Donald Trump in Fox News with Sean Hannity. And along the way, a song that other people imprisoned for their attack on Congress, understood, I think, is the national anthem.
Donald Trump used this in the path of the crusade. Now, here, Officer Danny Hodges of the D. C. Metropolitan Police Department. .
He told Newshouings at a press convention last week that he was still in paintings and had painted at the inauguration of President Donald Trump this month.
Hodges: It is a bit surreal on the day of the inauguration, with all those other people dressed in magic hats. They saw me and saw my uniform. They identified who Iarray
They thanked me for my service. And that reminded me of January 6, 2021, because that morning, I was also thanked for my service. And then they went into the ellipse and listened to Donald Trump speak. And he told them they had to fight, then he sent them to the Capitol. And once they went to the Capitol, they didn’t thank me anymore.
CHAKRABARTI: D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Danny Hodges. So Mary, you know, in the list of 100 questions that people who wish to become naturalized citizens of the United States. There is a question that says, what is the rule of law? And the answer is very, very simple. The answer is nobody is above the law.
I mean, how complete you say that this concept is how the US judicial formula is intended to function?
McCORD: It’s really at the core. And I would elaborate and give it a few more sort of points than just no one’s above the law, but that is the way you sort of sum it up. I would describe it in sort of four ways. It’s a system of laws that both the governed. That means the people, and the government, agreed to abide by. It is, there is transparency in the enactment and the enforcement of that law.
So, the people, so that there is predictability and stability. There is a formula for evaluating rights and daily jobs that is fair and that preserves people’s rights. And there are, in this formula, neutral, competent and independent lawyers and judges, right?All of this comes together to lead to what you have said.
No one is above this, the government or the government. And that’s what you know, this kind of cover page forgiveness that is found for that is also why the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling has undermined this rule of law, because it provides the president, under his office, absolute immunity for official acts, which come with the Pardones.
And then the alleged immunity of the things that are possibly, you know, within the outer limits of the official acts, which is anything that we do not know precisely what are the parameters of that. And only one type of gate for force abuse in a way that is absolutely incompatible with independent adhesion to the rule of law is opening.
Chakrabarti: Paula, did you answer that or did you go to that?
REID: Yeah. And again, I think you have to take the pardons in combination with what the Supreme Court says as we look forward to the next four years. I mean, President Trump, his advisors, they’re coming into the White House, and they’ll tell me, like, they have more experience now.
They are more complicated when consulting to achieve their goals. But then he had this top and the expanded strength that he gave it through the Supreme Court. And he sent this dog to whistle, really, to his followers. That if you do violence in my name, it has your back. All of those things in combination are deeply troubling.
CHAKRABARTI: Well, actually that makes me wonder, Mary, and I’ll turn this one back to you. The sort of wholesale criticism, or doubt that President Trump and many of his supporters now have about the justice, U.S. justice system.
Can we say that, essentially, this can potentially be a mirror symbol of the types of complaints and doubts that other people have had in the judicial system? I mean, you know, a long time ago considerations about racial prejudices in the judicial system, about unjustified sentences, you know, judge purchases, jury’s purchases. You know the biggest list than me.
Is this the type of continuous evolution based on herbs that we have had as Americans in terms of all our confidence in how the rule of law works in practice in US courts?
McCord: The difference, I think, is that those criticisms, and many of them are very legitimate. You know, me and others, you know, we have run to carry out instances and policies that will reform some of the systemic problems, namely you indicated, around the racial bias within the system, and things like that.
The remedy of other people who are too deficient to pay bail, the type of thing, which I would say that they are not bail problems, not such a challenge in the federal formula. Because someone who cannot pay the bail cannot be stopped, just because they cannot do it. But many states still have this bail formula that leaves other people imprisoned for long periods of time, even before they obtain a trial.
Therefore, there are valid criticisms, and there is a lot of room for reform. I would say the differences; These criticisms and attacks are well-founded. They are data-driven. There’s the explanation as to why for literally things, it can involve genuine biases and genuine constitutional violations, such as the detention of other people who are too deficient to pay the deposit. When someone with cash to pay a deposit would be released, right?
They can, those things have a base. What Donald Trump and his supporters, adding to the forgiven, to the fullest of them, I will not say that each and every single one to one of them, because I perceive that there is at least one user who has rejected forgiveness.
But they only believe from a total fabric, a false story about what happened on January 6. And we have heard it in his program, repeated through the president, repeated through some of those forgiven people. And that is the difference. It is only a lie that extends now, because, you know, since January 6, 2021.
Really ever since before that, before the election in 2020, Donald Trump had already started to say that if he didn’t win, it was because there was a rigged system, and that there was fraud in the election. And 65 court cases said there’s no evidence of fraud significant enough to change the outcome of the election.
They rejected that, Republicans, Democratic judges, etc.
Chakrabarti: Well, you know, I am the idea of the road in the gang that we play with the Republican legislators, even those who go so far as to say that they did not agree with the resolution of President Trump to forgive other people who had been discovered K for violent attacks opposed to the police.
His comments then imply a “but” or a “however. And then compare it with the movements of President Biden. For example, here is Senator Markwayne Mullen, Republican of Oklahoma. And on January 21, he in CNN. And and He and he said he did not necessarily agree with Trump’s resolution to forgive all uproar.
But then he said that he believed that any president had the right to factor the pardons.
Markwayne Mullen: I have my unpacious emotions in this regard, however, other American people have selected to move forward. And President Trump is his prerogative to do so. It was not hidden that forgiven on January 6, which was wrongly charged through the Department of Justice. I perceive what you say violent crimes.
However, that is still the president’s prerogative, just like it was Joe Biden’s prerogative to parole the 37 murders or commute their sentences. It is still the president’s prerogative to do that. Regardless of you and I agree with it or not, the president has the authority.
And the American people chose to put President Trump in office by overwhelming support.
Chakrabarti: That’s Senator Markwayne Mullen of Oklahoma. Paula, what do you make of that?
Reid: Well, here is the challenge of the strength of presidential forgiveness, unlike some of the other Trump movements, it is absolutely, and it is vast, but it is precisely what he said he would do.
He and Vance and the speaker trust other people that violent criminals would not be forgiven. And that is precisely what he did. So I don’t think we can let it go ‘still Joe Biden, “he left that. But former President Biden gave them political speech points. Prayer or do anything else.
And then forgive many circle of relatives. I mean, legally, that does not make a difference. Trump had power; Biden had power. But politically, they use many movements that former President Biden has taken to justify his own broader forgives. Even two months ago, when I talked to Trump’s advisors about how they would do this.
And I said, look, this sounds like it’s going to be pretty broad. Every time it would be, but Hunter Biden, didn’t you see what he just did with Hunter Biden? It was as if he gave them like a political license to do whatever they wanted here. So again, legally, it doesn’t make a difference, but politically they’ve definitely seized on the moves that Joe Biden made to justify.
You know, doing what they said they would.
Chakrabarti: Yes. Well, Paula Reid, CNN correspondent. Thank you, Paula, for joining us as always.
Reid: Thank you.
Chakrabarti: Mary, I need to ask you the last question. Because for me, it turns out that confidence in the rule of law is one of the key things that keeps a democracy together, right?
Because we agree as a country that we are going to respect this broader formula that is meant to be implemented in a similar way to all of us. If that trust is frayed, what does that say? We are, sorry, we have 30 seconds left, Mary, but what does that say about our confidence in the fitness or legitimacy of our own democracy?
McCord: Well, that raises a very harmful perspective, right? Where are we going from here? And I would like to close with an appointment of one of the judges of the District Court who then had to govern a movement to dismiss one of the pending cases after the pardons. And you know, he said, he has not happened here.
No process of national reconciliation can begin when poor losers whose preferred candidate loses an election are glorified for disrupting constitutionally mandated proceedings in Congress and doing so with impunity. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.
This program broadcast on January 28, 2025.
Claire Donnelly Producer, On PointClaire Donnelly is a producer at On Point.
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Meghna Chakrabarti Host, On PointMeghna Chakrabarti is the host of On Point.
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