President-elect Trump, in a new interview, said he intends to act on his first day to pardon individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol, including those who have pleaded guilty.
“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump told Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press" in his first major sit-down interview since winning a second term.
When asked about those who had admitted to assaulting police officers, Trump claimed "they had no choice" and suggested hundreds of others who pleaded guilty to other offenses were victims of a "very corrupt system."
“I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system,” Trump said. “They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.’ And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed. For two years, they’ve been destroyed. But the system is a very nasty system.”
More than 1,500 individuals have been charged for their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol to try to halt the certification of President Biden's victory in the 2020 election. More than 1,200 individuals have been convicted or pleaded guilty in connection to the events of Jan. 6, with more than 200 currently in custody.
Trump, who was charged in two separate federal cases that have been dropped since he won November's election, has sparked fears among critics that he will use the Justice Department to go after his critics and political rivals.
The president-elect said on NBC that members of the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol "should go to jail," though he said he would not direct his administration to arrest them.
He said he would leave it up to his nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, to determine whether to pursue figures like special counsel Jack Smith, who led the investigations into Trump in recent years.
"I'm really looking to make our country successful. I'm not looking to go back into the past," Trump said. "I'm looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success."
