https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/opinion/trump-jan-6-pardons-crimes-recidivism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XVA.BJ0G.u
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — General Discussion
sheetsadam1 — 2 days ago(March 31, 2026 04:29 PM)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/opinion/trump-jan-6-pardons-crimes-recidivism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XVA.BJ0G.uJkXZMSSg-cy&smid=url-share
The Constitution grants sweeping pardon powers to the president, which means that public opinion has historically been the only check on that power. The risk of a backlash is the reason that presidents have waited until their last days in office to issue many pardons and commutations, especially dubious ones to family members (like Hunter Biden) or political allies (like Caspar W. Weinberger, whom George H.W. Bush pardoned). The potential for a backlash also made presidents cautious about the number of pardons they issued. They understood that there could be an outcry if somebody who received a pardon later committed a new crime. The pardon system has also relied on the decency of American presidents.
President Trump has abandoned this approach. His self-serving pardons are so numerous that public attention cannot keep up with them. It is a version of the strategy that his former adviser Steve Bannon has described as “flood the zone”: Do so much so fast that people cannot follow the consequences.
He has created a veritable pardon industry, in which people with White House connections accept payments from wealthy convicts. Among those on whom he has bestowed freedom are dozens of people convicted of fraud. He has also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras, who helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, and Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for running Silk Road, a sprawling criminal enterprise that sold drugs. There seems to be no crime too ugly for a Trump pardon.
Worst of all, Mr. Trump granted clemency on the first day of his second term to everyone who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He did not distinguish between rioters who were relatively peaceful and those who attacked police officers, as Vice President JD Vance said should be the case. About 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters received a clean slate, regardless of their actions.
The results have been disastrous. At least 12 of the pardoned rioters have since been charged with other serious crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and charges related to a vicious dog attack. The outcome was predictable. Critics, including this board, had warned that Mr. Trump’s pardons would embolden the rioters by signaling that crime has no consequences. One does not have to be a criminologist to predict that people who commit a violent act and are absolved of any punishment might become repeat offenders.
The American public deserves to understand the mayhem that the Jan. 6 pardons have unleashed. Among the 12 serious recidivists whom we are aware of, four were in jail or prison at the time of the pardon, and they quickly went on to commit more crimes:
On March 5, a court in Florida sentenced Andrew Paul Johnson to life in prison for molesting a 12-year-old boy and a girl of the same age. To keep the children quiet, Mr. Johnson is said to have promised to bequeath to them part of a Jan. 6 restitution payment from the federal government that he claimed he would receive. He used the online gaming platforms Discord and Roblox to reach out to the children after Mr. Trump freed him from prison. On Jan. 6, Mr. Johnson entered the Capitol through a broken window and accosted police officers.
In the past two months, Jake Lang destroyed an ice sculpture outside the Minnesota State Capitol, leading to a felony vandalism charge, and helped organize an anti-Muslim rally in New York City that turned violent. On Jan. 6, he was caught on camera storming the Capitol with a baseball bat and a riot shield, which prosecutors said he used to attack police officers.
In May, Zachary Alam was arrested for breaking into a house in Virginia and stealing a tablet computer and a diamond necklace. On Jan. 6, he was among the first to enter the Capitol building from its west lawn and hurled items at police officers from a balcony. At his sentencing hearing, he was unrepentant: “Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what’s right.” He had previous convictions for auto theft and driving under the influence.
Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys, scuffled with protesters at a news conference and was briefly detained on assault charges, a month after Mr. Trump freed him from a 22-year prison sentence. Mr. Tarrio was one of the leaders behind the Jan. 6 attack, but he was not in Washington on the day of the riot. He had been kicked out of the city after vandalizing a Black church after an earlier pro-Trump rally.
An additional eight Jan. 6 rioters were out of prison when Mr. Trump pardoned them and have since been charged with new crimes:
On March 25, a judge sentenced Daniel Tocci to four years in prison for possession of more than 110,000 child pornography images. During the Jan. 6 riot, he joined the mob as it broke into the Capitol and destroyed a