Donald Trump grumbled that he’s unable to “go after” the members of the House select committee that investigated the events surrounding the January 6 riots because of Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon, which the former president said he issued to prevent his successor from prosecuting them.
Besides raging about his inability to exact retribution on the lawmakers who probed the attempted insurrection and his role in inciting the rioters, Trump also patted himself on the back for pardoning most of those convicted of crimes related to the Capitol attack.
In the second part of his interview with Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, which aired on the conservative network’s Spanish-language show Fox Noticias, the president was asked about his promise to release all the Justice Department’s files on deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
“I know Judicial Watch is suing to obtain Jeffrey Epstein's files. Can you give us an update?” Campos-Duffy asked, prompting the president to say that he wants to “release it” in full. MAGA acolytes have been obsessed over the so-called “Epstein Files” for years, and were furious when Attorney General Pam Bondi's much-hyped release of the documents revealed nothing new.
Trump, meanwhile, quickly pivoted to praising himself for his sweeping pardons of the Capitol rioters, which he claimed were highly popular.
“There's probably never been anything like what happened with the people from January 6th, who were largely and there’s always exceptions, but largely great patriots for this country,” he blustered. “And so many people were happy with that. You know, I did that and I let them out. I gave him their freedom. They were treated worse than murderers.”
To the contrary, public polling at the time of Trump’s pardons found that they were deeply unpopular, with roughly three-quarters of Americans disapproving of the president giving clemency to those convicted of violent crimes and more than half of the public objecting to Trump pardoning the nonviolent offenders.
Turning his attention to the congressional committee that probed the riot and Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the president groused that “they went after these people so violently” before peddling his previous false claim that the committee deleted “all the evidence” from its investigation.
Asked about the “pipe bomber” that has yet to be identified and whether he’ll “get to the bottom of it,” Trump declared the suspect was “a person of the left” while additionally asserting that other participants in the riot were agents provocateur who were looking to frame MAGA supporters.
At the same time, he complained that he couldn’t take legal action against former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republican lawmakers who sat on the January 6 committee.
“Look at the unselect Committee of political thugs – these horrible people – Democrats and two of the worst Republicans in history, crying Adam and Liz Cheney, two of the worst. They are just sick people,” he exclaimed. “This was the committee. And it went for a year and a half. At the end of a year and a half, what did they do? They destroyed every piece of evidence they had because it came out totally on our side.”
“They burned everything. And then Biden gave them all a pardon,” he continued. “These are congresspeople. These are people that are in Congress, not respected members, but they're in Congress.”
Saying that “Biden gave them all their freedom because they were dead,” Trump insisted that the committee’s actions were “so egregious” that they demanded criminal sanctions.
“But could you imagine if I deleted and destroyed all documents? And this is a hearing, a big deal that was set up that shouldn't have been allowed to go forward. And, that's it. So we can't even go after them because they were pardoned,” he concluded.
While issuing the preemptive pardons on his last day in office, which also included Dr. Anthony Fauci and General Mark Milley, Biden said these “public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
The former president added that “baseless and politically motivated investigations” can and do “wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.”
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