WashingtonTrump’s nominee for a 10-year term as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, disassociated himself from Trump’s broad pardon of Jan. 6 rioters on Thursday, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that he did not believe violent rioters who attacked law enforcement should be given a pass.
During his confirmation hearing, Patel stated, “I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I have included in that group specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6.” “I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”
The president’s decision to pardon almost all of the Jan. 6 offenders, with the exception of a few whose sentences were commuted, caused a rift among the Republican party and even within Trump’s own administration, as Patel’s remarks revealed. People who assaulted officers and those carrying firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, batons, bear spray, and other weapons were among those who received pardons.
During the session, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., expressed his disapproval of Trump’s pardons of violent rioters who had rioted on January 6 and said he had been telling personnel he met at Capitol security gates that he felt the same way.
I’ve been expressing my gratitude to these Capitol Police officers, and I told them that I truly felt that the pardons of those who had injured police officers were terrible,” Tillis remarked. With all due respect, I disagree with the President or whoever advised him.
Attorney General nominee Pam Bondis stated she denounced any violence against officers, while now-Vice President JD Vance stated that violent rioters should not be pardoned prior to the pardons on Inauguration Day.
In one tense encounter with Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Patel refused the senator’s request to turn around and confront Capitol Police officers in the hearing room as they talked about Patel’s attempts to promote a song sung by the alleged “J6 Choir.” According to Patel, he once organized fundraisers for the relatives of the nonviolent Jan. 6 defendants. He would “never, never, ever accept violence against law enforcement,” according to Patel.
On matters pertaining to January 6, Patel only went so far: He would only acknowledge that Joe Biden had served as president, rather than outright declaring that Trump had lost the 2020 election. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, found it “alarming” that Patel refused to respond to a “factual” and “simple” question, pointing out the FBI’s involvement in election law.
“The FBI is the primary agency responsible for investigating election-related crimes, including fraud and the denial of voting rights,” Hirono stated. “So, being able to separate fact from conspiracy theories around elections is an important thing for the FBI director.”
The Trump administration’s larger attempt to overhaul the FBI and Justice Department coincided with Patel’s confirmation hearing.Workers involved in Trump’s criminal investigations were let go. Prior to Patel’s arrival, an Elon Musk associate and an AGOP staffer had begun working at the bureau. A few FBI executives were warned that if they didn’t quit or resign, they would be demoted.
When Trump closed the investigation into the Capitol disturbance, former U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who led the Jan. 6 investigation, told NBC News that over 400 cases were either pending in court or in the pipeline but had not yet been charged.
“A substantial portion of those cases involved violence, and the individuals that were involved in assaulting and forcibly resisting officers, those individuals won t be held accountable, and there won t be a public record created of their actions,” Graves stated.
The prosecutions still produced “a robust public record of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents that thoroughly document for anyone who cares to genuinely know the facts” about what happened that day, according to Graves.
In a ruling on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedmann stated that Trump’s pardon contained a “factually incorrect” statement and that the evidence against the Jan. 6 rioters was strong, frequently backed by “powerful testimony from law enforcement officers” and “hundreds of hours of shocking videos of assaults on the Capitol and those trying to protect it.” He noted that Trump’s claims regarding how the Jan. 6 cases were handled were just not true.
“No serious national injustice has occurred. Furthermore, Friedmann noted, “The mere fact that the President signed the Proclamation does not change the direction from up to down or down to up as though looking through Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass.” “This Court was always a place of law and fact in the turbulent period that followed the events of January 6, 2021, as evidenced by the extensive records produced in these cases and the carefully thought-out sentences handed down by judges of this Court.