Witnesses say pardons sought after riot
At least a half-dozen Republican members of Congress sought preemptive pardons from President Donald Trump as he fought to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election, witnesses have told the House Jan. 6 committee, the panel disclosed Thursday.
Trump “had hinted at a blanket pardon for the Jan. 6 thing for anybody,” Trump’s former head of presidential personnel, Johnny McEntee, testified.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., appeared to ask for a broad pardon, not limited to his role in Trump’s effort to reverse the outcome of the election. Gaetz even invoked the pardoned former President Richard Nixon as he did so, Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer for Trump, testified.
“He mentioned Nixon, and I said, ‘Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad,’” Herschmann recounted.
Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., sent an email seeking a preemptive pardon for all 147 members of Congress who objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
A former adviser to Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified that Gaetz, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., all expressed interest in pardons.
She also testified that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, “talked about” pardons but did not directly ask for one, and she heard of newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also expressing interest to the White House Counsel’s Office.
Taken together, the former White House aides portrayed members of Congress concerned about potential exposure to prosecution in the wake of their support for Trump’s attempts to stay in power. The accounts provided a portrait of efforts to use a president’s broad clemency powers for nakedly political purposes.
In a statement, Perry denied seeking a pardon.
“I stand by my statement that I never sought a presidential pardon for myself or other members of Congress,” he said. “At no time did I speak with Miss Hutchinson, a White House scheduler, nor any White House staff about a pardon for myself or any other member of Congress — this never happened.”
Greene posted a clip of Hutchinson on Twitter and added: “Saying ‘I heard’ means you don’t know. Spreading gossip and lies is exactly what the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee is all about.”
Gohmert also denied making such a request and condemned the committee for how it has comported itself. Biggs similarly said that Hutchinson was “mistaken” and that her testimony was edited “deceptively.”
Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment.
Brooks confirmed seeking a pardon but said it was because he believed the Justice Department would be “abused” by the Biden administration.
He released the letter he sent the White House, in which he said he was putting the request in writing at the instruction of Trump. The fact that it had evidence that pardons were under discussion was previewed by the committee at an earlier hearing.
The panel previously revealed that a key figure in Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the election, conservative lawyer John Eastman, had emailed another Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, asking to be “on the pardon list, if that is still in the works.”
Eastman appeared before the committee and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination repeatedly.
It is unclear whether Gaetz’s reported request for a blanket pardon was driven by concerns about his attempts to overturn the election or other potential criminality. At the time that Gaetz made the request, he had just come under Justice Department investigation for sex-trafficking a minor. He has not been charged.
PARDON PROLIFERATION
The question of who was getting pardons, and for what, was a source of consternation in the final days of the Trump White House. The House select committee is using the information about the pardons to describe a broader effort to protect people who carried out Trump’s desires.
In his final weeks, Trump randomly offered pardons to former aides who were jarred because they were not sure what he thought they had done that was criminal, two former officials have said.
Among the concerns that Brooks cited was that he and other Republicans would be targeted by an incoming Justice Department, as he asked for pardons for the objectors to the certification, as well as supporters of a lawsuit that Gohmert filed to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject Biden’s win on Jan. 6.
The White House Counsel’s Office and Herschmann argued strenuously against the pardons for members of Congress, and Trump did not grant them.
With only hours left in office, Trump issued a pardon to Steve Bannon, his former White House adviser, wiping out federal charges that accused Bannon of defrauding political donors who supported building a border wall that Trump had pushed for.
In the weeks that preceded the pardon, Bannon had taken an active role in trying to keep Trump in office by promoting his claims of fraud. He also helped to devise a plan — later known as the Green Bay Sweep — to persuade members of Congress to block the normal counting of Electoral College votes by repeatedly challenging the results in various swing states.
Trump also gave pardons to his allies who were targets of the investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Russian officials in 2016. Some of them were supporters who also backed and amplified his efforts to stay in power.
One was Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser, who had pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about his dealings with a Russian diplomat. The case was later dropped over concerns about procedural issues.