Supporters of Donald Trump, who attacked the US Capitol four years ago, began leaving prison on Tuesday, after the newly inaugurated president issued a broad pardon that signaled his intent to make aggressive use of his power executive.
The Republican president’s pardon of 1,500 defendants on Inauguration Day on Monday caused outrage among lawmakers who were endangered in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.
“Donald Trump is ushering in a golden age of people breaking the law and trying to overthrow the government,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The attack was triggered by Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat, which threatened the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in US history. Around 140 police officers were attacked during the attack and four people died in the chaos.
Among those to be released are leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers organizations, including some who were convicted of seditious conspiracy. About 40 men wearing Proud Boys insignia traded insults with protesters on the streets of Washington during Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
Trump’s pardon was one of a series of decrees signed after the inauguration ceremony in the US Rotunda, where his supporters had carried out the invasion four years earlier.
Trump has also launched a sweeping crackdown on immigration, cut support for wind energy and electric vehicles and paved the way for oil drilling in the Arctic and offshore areas. He withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization.
However, Trump did not immediately impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada, as he had threatened to do.
Some of Trump’s executive orders, such as the one eliminating citizenship guarantees for those born in the United States, could be overturned in court.
Source: Terra
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