A Tale Of Two January 6ths
It’s January 6, and a storm is brewing in Washington, D.C.
By the end of the day, the nation’s capital could have more than 10 inches of snow, enough precipitation is enough to bring this spiritually-southern city to its knees. Schools are already closed, there are at least two snowball fights planned for the National Mall, and bureaucrats are anxiously refreshing the government snow day page, hoping to work remotely.
But there’s at least one group of people settling in for a full work day. At 1:00 p.m., Vice President Kamala Harris will gavel in a special joint session of Congress. In her capacity as President of the Senate, she’ll oversee a vote to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election.
In an appearance on Fox News yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, fresh off his re-election, said he does not expect the blizzard to interfere with the vote.
“Well, I hope we have full attendance,” Johnson told Maria Bartiromo. “We’ve got a big snow storm coming to D.C. and we encourage all of our colleagues, ‘Do not leave town. Stay here.’ Because, as you know, the Electoral Count Act requires this on January 6 at 1 p.m. So, whether we’re in a blizzard or not we’re going to be in that chamber making sure this is done.”
Winter weather aside, this is all pretty standard stuff — and a far cry from the last vote to certify, the day that Americans will always remember when they think “January 6.”
A lot has happened since then. Trump, of course, handed power over to Joe Biden, whose disastrous presidency eventually gave way to Harris’s disastrous, insurgent presidential campaign. And after a landslide victory in November, Trump is now set to return to the White House in just two weeks.
He might kick off his term by pardoning the January 6 defendants.
Trump has said repeatedly that he is open to pardoning many of the 1,600 people charged for their involvement in the Capitol Riot, hundreds of whom have been jailed. And Trump has frequently spoken out against what he says is very unfair treatment of mostly peaceful protestors.
“These people have suffered,” Trump said in a December appearance on “Meet The Press.” “Their lives have been destroyed.”
The president-elect has indicated that he would not consider a blanket pardon, and that he would make “some exceptions” for those found to have done something really criminal. But it seems very likely that Trump will kick off his second term by pardoning many of the January 6 defendants.
This was by no means a foregone conclusion. After January 6, many people predicted that Trump’s political career was over. Many wanted him to go to jail for his role in the protests. And Democrats and the legacy media called the protesters domestic terrorists engaged in a coup, an effort to upend American democracy.
But Trump came back. The election interference case against him failed. In October, the New York Times found that fewer and fewer people thought January 6 was a threat to democracy, while a growing number of people thought Trump was well within his rights to contest the 2020 election results.
In December, an inspector general report determined the FBI had 26 undercover informants on the ground on January 6, many of whom stormed the Capitol without authorization, but were not charged. A few weeks after the report was released, Matthew Graves, the DC attorney general who prosecuted the January 6 defendants, announced that he’s stepping down before Trump returns to the White House.
All of this — combined with Biden’s unpopular decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, and commute the death sentences of brutal murderers — has really softened the ground for whatever January 6 pardons Trump may consider.
A lot can happen in four years.