Trump pardons of Capitol rioters cannot 'whitewash' truth — judge
'It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake,' District Judge Tanya Chutkan says
'It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake,' District Judge Tanya Chutkan says
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Three federal judges on Wednesday strongly condemned President Donald Trump's sweeping pardons of supporters who stormed the US Capitol four years ago in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
"No pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021," District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in an order dismissing the charges against a Capitol riot defendant.
"It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake," Chutkan said. "And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America's sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power."
Trump, just hours after taking office on Monday, granted pardons to more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in a bid to halt congressional certification of Joe Biden's election victory.
In doing so, he also commuted the sentences of 14 members of the far-right Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia.
Chutkan presided over the criminal case filed against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The case never came to trial, and it was dismissed after Trump won the November election, in line with a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Two other Washington-based federal judges who presided over cases involving Capitol riot defendants also dismissed the charges on Wednesday with strongly worded condemnations of the pardons.
District Judge Beryl Howell said there was no factual basis for dismissing the charges against two of the defendants before her court, only an assertion by the Trump White House that a "grave national injustice" had been done.
