Trump Press Secretary Pushes Back on Kilmeade Asking About Jan. 6 Pardons: ‘I Don’t Think It’s Causing Much Controversy’

Newly installed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on Brian Kilmeade’s question about President Donald Trump’s controversial pardons of Jan. 6 defendants during a Tuesday morning appearance on Fox & Friends.

After taking the oath of office Monday, Trump signed a pardon of over 1,600 individuals who had been charged with a number of crimes over the riot, which occurred when throngs of Trump supporters, fueled by baseless claims that the 2020 election had been stolen, invaded the capitol and attacked law enforcement trying to protect the building and its elected officials inside.

Fury over the pardons was swift and bipartisan as commentators on the left and the right condemned the decision.

Making her first appearance on Fox News as press secretary, Leavitt was first pressed on former President Joe Biden’s pardons of his family members, to which she predictably was quite critical.

“Yesterday’s pardons prove that he knew they were guilty and he wanted to protect them in his last hour as president of the United States,” she said. “But we are looking forward now and President Trump looks forward to restoring our Justice Department and law and order in this country and ending the weaponization of justice that has taken place against him and his supporters over the last four years under the Biden-Harris administration.”

Kilmeade then pivoted to the Jan. 6 pardons, saying “How does that play into President Trump, that having to do with President Trump pardoning all the J6ers, which is causing some controversy this morning?”

“I don’t think it’s causing much controversy,” Leavitt insisted. “President Trump campaigned on this promise. It should come as no surprise that he delivered on it on day one. And there are people who have been held hostage, as President Trump says, by the Biden DOJ. Many of them, their due process was denied. They were targeted by our Department of Justice while the DOJ turned a blind eye to real criminals who have been committing violent rapes and murders in American communities, especially illegal migrant crime.”

“President Trump took historic action yesterday to secure our southern border and launch the largest mass deportation operation in history. And so, again, President Trump is restoring faith in our justice system, while Joe Biden again, on his way out the door, pardons his own family,” she concluded.

Up to and until that moment, Trump’s pardon of even the most violent rioters on January 6 had been nearly ignored entirely on Fox & Friends — which began airing at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning as part of special Trump inauguration coverage — apart from a brief mention during a report filed by Jacqui Heinrich in the 7 AM hour.

Watch above via Fox News.