Who wants to be a Jacobin?
Most of those sentenced for J6 have already served their time.
During and after the January 6th riot, President Donald Trump did nothing.
Well, not nothing. He expressed love for the rioters, and asked them to respect law enforcement, after they brutally attacked police—which Trump watched on live television. Vice President Mike Pence escaped unharmed. Members of Congress were traumatized, being the targets of a riotous throng surging through the Capitol. Then, came the aftermath. Everyone—this writer included—called for Trump’s resignation and removal. But Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to participate in the impeachment process—except for Liz Cheney. Republicans in the Senate refused to convict the president. And now, surviving every legal and political (and assassination) effort to keep him out of office, Trump will be president again. We know all of this, and none of it is stale enough to forget.
So for Donald Trump, there was no justice for his actions in 2021. It appears that outside of the divine, there will not be justice. But for the 1,500-odd individuals who were identified and charged with crimes associated with January 6th, there’s been justice.
After Joe Biden was sworn in, the FBI and Washington, D.C. prosecutors went into high gear to round up anyone who broke laws on January 6th, 2021. I remember seeing billboards on the roads in Georgia asking for tips. It didn’t take years to find them—most of the rioters thought they were going to a rally to see President Trump present incontrovertible evidence of a stolen election. They thought they’d witness a watershed moment in American history, where a great fraud was exposed and corrected. They were right about the fraud—but they were the marks.
Certain groups were in on the fraud, but many of the ones who flew or drove to hear Trump’s speech at The Ellipse had no idea they were about to engage in an act of insurrection to steal the presidency for their man, who lost the election and refused (still does, occasionally) to admit it.
Some of the leaders of groups inside the real purpose of J6, like Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who heads up the Proud Boys, got tough sentences. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. But most of those charged got lighter sentences, averaging a little over a year. They did commit crimes, and most expressed regret and remorse, having ruined their lives. There was no mercy shown them—it was all justice. It’s almost like the pent-up and frustrated efforts to contain Trump were thrown all the harder at those who were really not planning to be criminals when they showed up for a “wild” event.
Bruno Joseph Cua was 20 years old when he went to Washington with his parents. He, along with them and the crowd, marched to the Capitol to “fight like hell” as they’d been encouraged to do by Trump. He became separated from his parents, and entered the Capitol after the police lines were breached. Caught up in his youthful excitement, he sort of forgot that “storming the Capitol” is a pretty serious crime, until he was arrested on February 6th, 2021. He was charged with 12 separate crimes, tried, found guilty, and sentenced on July 26, 2023.
Cua was inside the Capitol for a total of 17 minutes. He obeyed the officers who escorted him out. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison, plus 36 months of supervised release. Presumably, he’s now released. I don’t have the heart to go find him.
About 80 to 90 percent of the 1,000-plus J6 convicts have completed their prison time and are out, most serving some kind of supervised release. As president, Donald Trump has promised to pardon them.
The question I ask: has justice been served?
To the extent that those who were convicted and served their time for a half-hour of romping through the Capitol, shouting stupid slogans, and causing some repairable damage, but mostly insulting the chambers of our government, I believe justice has been served. As for the leaders, and the main figure in the J6 insult to our nation, well, the electorate has put him back in charge. So, if we’re going after Trump enablers, we should be rounding up 70-plus million voters, and every Republican serving in Congress, and charging them as accessories.
I know that many would be in favor of doing exactly that. And the end of such thought is not peace, or binding up of the wounds this nation suffered. The end of such thought is the Great Terror, like what happened in 19th century France. Perhaps that would serve justice, but I think it would create far more injustice.
President Biden should have done what U.S. leaders did in after Robert E. Lee’s forces surrendered at Appomattox Court House. General Ulysses Grant paroled over 28,000 Confederate soldiers and sent them home. President Andrew Johnson pardoned all Confederates who swore allegiance to to the United States (excepting Robert E. Lee, who never earned back his citizenship).
Biden might have satisfied the need for justice—the frustrated attempts to right Trump’s wrong—but he did not do anything to heal the nation. Now that most of the J6 participants have served their time, what would a Trump pardon do?
Not much. Not as much as Biden’s commutation of 37 death row inmate sentences, some of whom were waiting for execution for terribly heinous crimes. Perhaps Trump might pardon Tarrio, and that will generate outrage. But who will be outraged that Cua won’t have to call his parole officer every month to remind him of those 17 minutes he wished he could take back?
This country needs, more than anything else, some healing. I don’t much care that Trump is offering pardons (if he indeed does it) out of his own narcissism, or to further bind his own cultlike followers to him. I do care that there is an end to justice, and that’s the beginning of mercy.
It is time for mercy at a national level. I don’t think anyone needs to forgive Donald Trump. He’s going to be president and every screw-up and mismanagement needs to be exposed and given light. But those who were present on January 6, 2021 did their part for justice. Let them have their lives—what is left of them—back. Or be a Jacobin. It’s your choice.
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If pardoning the J6 criminals DOES NOT increase the chance of another J6. I'm sympathetic to your argument. If pardoning them DOES increase the chance of similar incident, I'm not going to shed a tear for each visit that Cua has to make with his parole officer and the black mark following him around on his record. (And the effect that having to check in with a parole officer keeps him from associating with any more extremist elements.)
If I had faith that showing mercy in this case would do anything to to help the national mood, I'd be behind you in calling for that. However, as we've seen MANY MANY times, Trump - and those who follow him - look at impulses like mercy as a license to continuing exploiting the system and the "suckers" who let them off the hook.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I was thinking more on Biden's pardons and what separates the three he did not pardon from the others, and I think it's this:
The three that remain committed murder as an attack on the United States itself: Tsarnaev of course as a general terror attack, but the other two as attacks on the idea of the US that all people are equal here regardless of ethnicity/race.