Trump got it wrong on pardons for the worst Jan. 6 offenders, ex-Veep Pence says in Boston stop
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that while he has "no qualms" about President Donald Trump pardoning non-violent Jan. 6 protesters, his old boss absolutely got it wrong by pardoning those who assaulted police officers.
"People that violated the Capitol, who assaulted police officers, should never have been pardoned," Pence said during an appearance at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Dorchester. "It sent the wrong message."
Pence, who faced death threats from the mob that sacked the Capitol four years ago on Jan. 6, 2021, was in the Senate chamber as lawmakers met to certify former President Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Speaking to Meghan McCain, the daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who moderated the event, Pence said the venue for the discussion, the institute's replica U.S. Senate chamber, brought back memories of that tragic day.
Trump plunged ahead with those pardons despite polling showing that even some of his supporters had reservations.
Trump has called people who stormed the Capitol "patriots," and in his pardon proclamation earlier this year, he referred to the Jan. 6 investigations and prosecutions as a "national injustice," NPR reported .
Asked by McCain about the outbreaks of political violence over the last year, including the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the twin assassination attempts against Trump, Pence was unequivocal.
"Political violence must be universally condemned," Pence said.
He corrected McCain, who suggested that such acts had been perpetrated mainly against Republicans, by noting the arson attack against Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and the murder of Minnesota's Democratic House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman , earlier this year.
Hortman's husband and the family dog were also killed, and a Minnesota Democratic state senator was also gravely wounded by the same attacker.
When he considers those acts of bipartisan violence, Pence said he had "two reactions."
The "first is that I think we need to resist the temptation of putting America on trial any time a deranged individual breaks the law and engages in violence against our citizens," he said.
Pence also said he believes that justice in those cases, while subject to due process, must be swift and unambiguous. It was not entirely clear what he meant by the latter.
"I do believe that the very idea that someone who engages in any number of these political, public acts or mass shootings would languish in prison for 20 or 30 years, that's not justice," he said.
"Justice delayed is justice denied," he continued, without elaboration. "I think we have to think very seriously about how we expedite, without compromising due process, how we expedite the prosecution and ultimately, justice delivered to people that engage in these crimes."
The Republican's remarks netted him some pushback from an audience member during the question-and-answer portion of the event, leading to his remarks about Trump and his pardons.
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