Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki to react to President Donald Trump signing executive orders to pardon 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists and discuss former President Joe Biden issuing preemptive pardons to family members and the January 6th Committee.
Key Excerpts:
On Trump’s pardons for January 6th insurrectionists:
[…] It’s obscene. It’s a grotesque display of his new power as president to pardon these 1,500 or 1,600 people, which I have to imagine, includes people that committed violent assaults on law enforcement. It certainly includes, apparently, one of the leaders of the Proud Boys. Rather fitting sadly, that among his very first acts in office was to give a pardon to a white nationalist leader like that.
So, hard to imagine that we were sitting in the Capitol, the site of that attack, and hours later, the man who incited that attack pardons the people who participated in that attack. It really is a terrible way to begin, but not a surprising way to begin the new Administration.
[…]
Seditious conspiracy is one of the most serious charges that the prosecutors would bring. It’s not something that is easily proven. It’s not something that is frequently charged. It’s very seldom in charge in our history. So these were people that the Justice Department considered most complicit in the violence of that day, in the planning of it, and the conspiring to make it happen. January 6th didn’t come all by itself. It wasn’t spontaneous, a lot of it was planned. So these are some of the ring leaders that are now being given this pardon on the president’s first day. And if this is just the first day of the second term, imagine what there is to come.
On Pam Bondi’s lack of influence as Trump’s pick for attorney general:
[…] Either she advised the president not to do this, which I sincerely doubt, or she has no influence over the president, because it was clear that he was not going over these one by one to make a mass grant of a pardon like this. It was his way of trying to, once again, rewrite history, but history will not be rewritten. Notwithstanding these pardons, notwithstanding all the big lies he continues to propagate. And he was in the Capitol again propagating lies about Nancy Pelosi.
We’re going to continue to push back against those falsehoods. But this is part of that effort that he is making to absolve himself of the responsibility, since the Civil War, the first effort to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.
On Biden’s preemptive pardons setting a bad precedent:
[…] I would have preferred that he didn’t, not to the committee, not to members of his family. The reason why I understand why he did what he did is the cause of all of this is Donald Trump pledging to go after his enemies, his picking an attorney general nominee who is committed to prosecuting the prosecutors. So, these are folks that have pledged retaliation against those who held him accountable. So that never should have been done by President Trump. That’s quite obvious. So this is a reaction to that, but nevertheless, I’m concerned about the precedent that it sets. And we see, of course, with Trump, he doesn’t really need a precedent to essentially abuse the powers of his office.
Regardless, I think of what President Biden did, he was going to go forward with the pardoning of these January 6th attackers and insurrectionists. What does concern me, too, though, about the pardon of President Biden’s own family members is we can now fully expect President Trump will pardon his kids or any of his family on his way out the door which basically tells his family members, it’s carte blanche for you for the next four years, because you’re going to get a get out of jail free card when you get out. And that is not the precedent I would have had President Biden set. Now, Trump might have done it anyway. He probably would have done it anyway. But nevertheless, that’s my concern about this kind of precedent.
On the importance of attending Trump’s inauguration:
[…] I’ve always viewed the inauguration as about the office, not about the person who is being sworn in. So whether I voted for the person or I didn’t vote, whether I think highly of them or I don’t, I thought it was important for me to be there. Now, I understand others feel differently, and I appreciate that. I respect that.
But from my point of view, it’s important for me to be there, as difficult as it is, frankly, to be back in that space in that Capitol. And I think even more than on January 6th of this year, today I was even more conscious of the violence that took place in that building. Maybe because he was also there, and maybe because I knew that there was a prospect that he would pardon the people responsible for that attack. But it was surreal to sit there to listen to the man who incited that attack, and to imagine that he was now taking the oath of office again and how he might use the powers of that office.
Watch the full video of the interview here.
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