One of the first actions Donald Trump took after being inaugurated as president on Jan. 20 was to issue pardons for 1,500-plus people who were charged with or convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
On Tuesday, in an interview on the Newsmax cable network, Trump there was “a lot of talk” that a compensation fund could be set up to benefit those people, who he called “patriots.”
After discussing the pardons Trump issued to those convicted or charged in connection to the Jan. 6 event, Newsmax’s Greg Kelly asked Trump, “Is there any talk of — because they lost opportunity, they lost income — any kind of compensation fund or anything like that?”
“Well, there’s talk about that. We have a lot of people talking about it,” Trump answered, in a clip on Mediaite. “A lot of the people that are in government now talk about it, because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people. They were patriots as far as I was concerned. I talk about them a lot. They were treated very unfairly.”
More than 1,200 people were convicted of crimes for their actions Jan. 6 at the Capitol, including approximately 250 convicted of assault charges, according to the Associated Press, before Trump’s blanket pardon was issued. Some members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
At least 11 Central New York residents had their sentences pardoned or commuted by Trump.
Trump called those he pardoned “incredible people. They were treated so unfairly, so horribly. Some of them didn’t even go in the building. … But I took care of them. I said I was going to, and I did.”
