Thune says Jan. 6 pardons are decision Trump will have to make
New Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said it’s President-elect Trump’s decision to pardon Jan. 6 rioters.
Thune joined NBC News’s “Meet the Press” for an interview that aired Sunday, where he was asked by host Kristen Welker how he felt about Trump’s promise to pardon Jan. 6 defendants once he was back in the White House.
“That’s ultimately going to be a decision that President Trump is going to have to make,” Thune said of the pardons.
Last month, Trump told Time magazine that pardons would start within “the first hour” or even in the “first nine minutes.”
Trump has long promised to grant clemency to those who stormed the Capitol as Congress certified President Biden’s 2020 election victory. On the campaign trail, he called them “political prisoners.”
This year marks the fourth anniversary of rioters storming the Capitol after leaving Trump’s rally at the Eclipse in Washington.
When asked about Trump’s potential pardons, Thune compared it to the recent pardons made by Biden.
In a controversial move, Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, after noting he would not grant his son clemency. Biden also announced pardons for 39 people and commuted sentences for 1,500 others.
“As we’ve discovered under the Biden administration, the pardon authority is a very broad one,” Thune said.
The new Senate leader said he isn’t examining the past, including Jan. 6, and instead is “focused on the future.”
“I think you learn from the past, you remember the past, but you live in the present and the future,” he said, turning his attention to the next administration’s goals.