Top Dem Reportedly Called Pardoned J6 Prisoners Trump’s ‘Private Militia’ and Speculated That ‘He Can Call On Them Again’
MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend said a top Democratic state legislator called President Donald Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 Capitol rioters him letting his “private militia out of jail.”
Sanders joined Stephanie Ruhle on Monday night’s The 11th Hour following Trump’s inauguration and sweeping pardons. Sanders told Ruhle she’s heard from a number of concerned Democrats, including one who believes the Jan. 6 prisoners are a private army that Trump could call on.
Sanders said:
Donald Trump had said that he was going to pardon the January 6th hostages, as he called them, and we know they are not hostages, these were people who went through the legal system, were convicted by a jury of their peers many of them and serving sentences. They they committed these acts on camera. We saw it. It’s kind of crazy. But for weeks, months, Republicans have been saying that Donald Trump is not going to do blanket sentences. The people that harmed police officers, they are not going to get pardons. And what we saw today was a blanket sentence. Pardon a pardon me, a blanket pardon. It was interesting to me, I was texting with a lot of Democrats from across the country, you know, state legislative leaders, because this fight is going to be in the states. As much as we look at congress, America’s policy is made in the state legislatures. And one senior dem state legislator from out west texted me and said, you know, he literally just let his private militia out of jail, said he’s instilled a sense of loyalty, these these people feel loyal to him and their lawlessness is now going to go unchecked.
The former spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris also defended President Joe Biden’s lat minute pardons of family members, arguing he was only responding to threats made by Trump.
“I understand the concerns that people had, but I also understand what the president said is that the incoming president, President Trump has promised a special prosecutor to go after look into the Biden family,” Sanders said. “And so what he did is respond to the climate. If the lawmakers don’t like it, put a check on the president and pass a bill, okay, and curb the pardon powers. But until that happens, this is where we are.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
