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Republican Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire came out firmly against former President Donald Trump's idea to pardon rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump—during a Texas rally on Saturday evening—floated the suggestion that he'll pardon his supporters who stormed the federal legislative building a little over a year ago, if he were to become president again. "We will treat them fairly, and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons," the former president said.
In a Sunday morning segment of CNN's State of the Union, anchor Dana Bash played the clip of Trump's remarks from the rally held at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Conroe. Bash then asked Sununu for his response.
"Folks that were part of the riots and, frankly, the assault on the U.S. Capitol have to be held accountable," Sununu, who is up for re-election this year, replied. "There's a rule of law," the GOP governor asserted.
Sununu went on to compare the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the legislative branch of government to those who rioted across the country in 2020 amid the massive Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder. "Everyone needs to be held fairly accountable across [the board]—that's part of leadership," he said.
Bash interjected, asking: "They shouldn't be pardoned?"
"Of course not," the New Hampshire governor responded. "Oh my goodness, no!"
Speaking in front of thousands of supporters at the Texas rally, Trump lamented the treatment of those who stormed the Capitol on January 6.
"And another thing we'll do, and so many people have been asking me about it, if I run [in 2024], and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly," the former president said. "We will treat them fairly, and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons."
Trump also appeared to suggest that his supporters should act in a similar manner in the future if prosecutors investigating him and his business do anything that impacts him negatively.
"If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt," the former president said at the Saturday event.
"In reality, they're not after me, they're after you, and I just happen to be the person in the way," he added later.
Legal experts quickly slammed Trump's remarks. John W. Dean, who served as White House counsel in the administration of former President Richard Nixon, condemned Trump's suggestion that he'd pardon January 6 rioters.
"This is beyond being a demagogue to the stuff of dictators. He is defying the rule of law. Failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior. If thinking Americans don't understand what Trump is doing and what the criminal justice system must do we are all in big trouble!" Dean tweeted.
Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard, tweeted his alarm as well. "I have no doubt Trump is serious about this. He is saying he'll dismantle the legal system retroactively," Tribe wrote.
More than 760 pro-Trump rioters allegedly involved with the January 6, 2021 attack have been been charged thus far. On the day of the assault, hundreds of the then president's supporters stormed the Capitol in an apparent effort to disrupt Congress from formally certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory. The attack came after Trump at a nearby rally urged them to walk to the legislative building and "fight like hell" to save their country.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's press office for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
About the writer
Jason Lemon is a Senior Politics Editor at Newsweek based in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to taking on the editor role, Jason's reporting focused ... Read more