On Saturday, while the Northeast was buried under snow, a tired-looking former president was in Texas babbling to a large crowd about his problems. Just over a year ago, Donald Trump’s one-term presidency came to a disgraceful end, with him whipping-up an already rowdy crowd, their heads filled with lies about voter fraud, who then stormed the Capitol building, leading to five deaths. Those who breached the barriers have been rounded up by the feds, some because they actually called lost and found. But, Trump said, if he’s re-elected they’ll be back on the streets.
Trump promises to pardon people convicted of crimes connected with January 6 if he wins in 2024 pic.twitter.com/hFd1hmvSLi
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2022
Trump didn’t formally announce he was running a third time for the job that effectively landed him in all manner of legal and financial peril, but he did claim that the violent people who injured dozens of police officers and threatened to hang his vice president were being treated “so unfairly” and that it’s a “disgrace.” And he may do something about it…in a few years.
“If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly,” Trump told the crowd. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Trump’s promise comes amidst the ever-escalating investigation into that fateful day by the House select committee, who have issued scores of subpoenas, some of which have been ignored by people who may wind up serving time.
Speaking of, another Trump headache is the investigation by both the New York State attorney general’s office and the Manhattan district attorney into the Trump organization’s financial history. NY State A.G. Letitia James has already uncovered “significant evidence” of fraud. At his rally, he didn’t cal the “prosecutors by name,” but he did call them “racist” against white people (James is Black).
So Trump, who’s tried to distance himself from the violent supporters he wants to pardon, called on his base to get even madder. “If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere,” he thundered.
Trump calls for protests in DC, NYC, Atlanta, and other cities if he’s prosecuted for crimes pic.twitter.com/71YWJk1fr1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2022
In other words, the Jan. 6 insurrection was good and there will be another, even bigger one if he’s prosecuted for the crimes he may have committed.
So he wants to pardon the people prosecuted for the last insurrection and he wants another insurrection if he’s prosecuted
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 30, 2022
There was a lot more than that. He did some old fashioned projection by calling out the “Biden crime family.” He told his largely unvaxxed supporters to defy the mandates keeping them and others from dying preventable deaths. He once again bragged about passing a simple dementia test. He even claimed that a New York Times reporter admitted to him that there was election fraud, which totally happened. In other words, a fine Saturday night out for Trumpists.
(Via CNN)