National Security
Judges stress need to preserve truth of Jan. 6 as pardon talk intensifies
Three men who joined in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot were sentenced to a year or more in prison, and some judges brushed off the prospect of Trump pardons.
December 6, 2024
“Just as the president must make decisions on matters of clemency without interference, so too must our judiciary independently administer the laws and sentence convicted offenders,” Lamberth said. “That is what it means to have an independent judiciary, that is what it means to have law and order.”
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Reffitt’s actions were “highly premeditated and intentional,” threatening political violence to intimidate and coerce government officials, the judge said. As Reffitt recorded himself saying, she said, his goal was “literally overthrowing … elected officials”
As Jan. 6 leaders call for retribution, judges warn against revisionism
Trump pardons of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers fuel battle over how history will view the Capitol riot; House GOP launches investigation into earlier Jan. 6 probe.
January 22, 2025
On Wednesday, several federal judges granted the Justice Department’s pardon-based requests to dismiss cases while saying in their rulings that the true story of Jan. 6 could not be whitewashed.
“Dismissal of charges, pardons after convictions, and commutations of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in dismissing one riot defendant’s case.
The record in these cases — thousands of videos, trial transcripts, verdicts and legal opinions analyzing the evidence through a neutral lens — “are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” the judge said.
