Trump is going to forgive me in any case.” That was the defiant response Philip Grillo gave last month to Royce Lamberth, the Washington judge who had just sentenced him to a year in prison. Grillo, a 49-year-old New York man, was one of the thousands of Donald Trump supporters who staged the assault on the Capitol four years ago, on January 6, 2021. His sentencing hearing was on December 5, just a month after Trump clearly won his second presidential election, against Kamala Harris. Four years earlier, claiming a massive non-existent electoral “theft”, he had tried to stay in power against the dictates of the polls. Now, Americans did support him with their votes, in the greatest political comeback in US history. And today, again on January 6, legislators will once again go to the Capitol to certify the winner of a presidential election Eaten by inflation Trump’s victory was celebrated by tens of millions of Americans, irritated by inflation that has eaten into their pockets during Joe Biden’s single term, tired of the dominant identity ideology among Democrats, distrustful of Harris, excited by the return of the New York billionaire. But no one was as happy as the more than 1,500 protagonists of the assault on the Capitol who have been charged with that infamy: the attempt to forcibly prevent the certification of Biden as winner of the 2020 presidential election. Champagne would flow into the homes of the relatives of those sentenced to prison, those who are subject to parole and those who, once their sentence has been served, have to live with the stain of being a convict. The result of the polls was the shortest path to his redemption. The last stage of their transition from villains to heroes, at least for a part of the United States. Trump never hid during the campaign that his intention was to use the prerogatives of the presidency to grant clemency to those convicted of January 6. The riots that day left several people dead – including a protester who was shot by police, others who suffered medical problems in the riot, and police officers who took their own lives after the events –, caused extensive damage and left 140 people dead. wounded agents, Trump has described the accused in his rallies as “patriots”, “warriors”, “hostages”, “political prisoners”. In his first interview after the election, on NBC, he confirmed this. “I’m going to act very quickly, on the first day,” he said of granting pardons, referring to the presidential decrees that Trump is expected to sign as soon as he steps foot in the White House. Trump insisted that many of those who were prosecuted have been treated unfairly, put in “dirty, disgusting” places, mistreated by a “cruel system.” Related News Standard No Trump, to the 37 federal prisoners commuted by Biden: “Go away to hell!” Trump spent Christmas Day rebutting on his ‘Social Truth’ platform about his own perceived political persecution, a contrast to Biden’s Christmas wishes “to all Americans.” The “exceptions” In his style, Trump was unclear about who will receive presidential clemency. He only said that there would be “exceptions”, that those who acted in a “crazy” or “radical” manner would not receive forgiveness (that is, in his vision, the vast majority of those who forcibly entered the headquarters of the popular sovereignty to prevent the dictation of the ballot boxes from being certified). Among the members of the ‘January 6 community’ – as those who assaulted the Capitol call themselves – there are figures of all stripes. There is Jacob Chansley, the so-called ‘QAnon shaman’, the bizarre protester with his bare chest, horns, fur hat and painted face who managed to become the image of that embarrassing and tragic day. He is among the majority – almost a thousand – of the more than 1,250 convicted people who have done so in voluntary cooperation with the authorities. Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in prison, but managed to get out a few months early and was under house arrest and conditionally released. . He tried unsuccessfully to be a representative for a district in Arizona and, after fighting with the courts, he managed to get justice to return the spear with a US flag and the fur and horn headdress that made him famous. He will surely try to be seen in the coming days in Washington. Of the more than two hundred defendants who chose to go to trial, the profiles are very different. Some, like Grillo himself or Derrick Evans, a former West Virginia state representative, who were not violent, have received short sentences. Others, however, were recorded in vicious attacks on police. Among them, Zachary Rehl and Joseph Biggs, who were leaders of the extremist group Proud Boys, and who were sentenced to terms of 15 and 17 years in prison. Their lawyer, Norm Pattis, has argued that they should also be subject to pardon. of Trump. “He has to acknowledge the fact that he created enormous expectations with his accusations of electoral theft,” he told Reuters. “People responded as if he were the president of the United States.” (Trump has always maintained that he did not incite violence and that he told his followers to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol.) “I know he will forgive us, I think so with all my heart,” Biggs himself said in an interview on Infowars, an extremist media that spreads conspiracy theories. “We went there like he told us,” he added of the assault. Proud Boys It may be too much, even for Trump, to forgive people like Biggs. Or others who were not even in the riots, but were essential protagonists: Steven Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, an extremist militia; and Enrique Tarrio, top leader of the Proud Boys. They were sentenced to 18 and 22 years, respectively, on charges that included sedition. For those outside of ‘Trumpism’, any pardon will be excessive. “No matter what ends up happening with the Capitol riot cases, the true story of what happened on January 6, 2021 will never change,” Judge Lamberth himself argued in a sentencing hearing last month. “They violated restricted areas, destroyed public property, attacked security force agents and tried to reverse the will of an electoral majority.” Now, some of them see another electoral majority as the end of their sorrows. This is what he said before Judge Will Pope, a defendant from Kansas: “In the end, the jury in my case was the American people, and they voted in favor of my release.”
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