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january 6 insurrection
Whose Example Will We Follow, America—Carter’s or Trump’s?
The funeral of Jimmy Carter just days away from the inauguration of Donald Trump has presented us with a choice and a challenge.
Jan 13, 2025
This past week, Washington D.C. was witness to a stark study in contrasts: The solemn dignity involved in the nation’s farewell to former President Jimmy Carter and the blustery antics accompanying former President Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House.
There couldn’t be any two men more different than Carter and Trump. And as if to make that point, one day’s newspaper featured headlines that virtually screamed across the front page at each other. One read “Celebrating a ‘servant of the people,’” with the subhead “As Carter arrived in Washington, many gather to honor his humility and decency.” On the other side, we read “Trump won’t rule out coercion to expand U.S. map,” with the subhead, “He eyes Panama Canal and Greenland.”
In the same week Americans were mourning the death of one former president who was praised for his service to others, his humility, honesty, and commitment to peace, democracy, and human rights, they were also awaiting the return of another former president who was threatening to use coercion to “take over” foreign countries and pardon hundreds of people convicted of the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
There is another factor that unites these two former presidents: Despite their obvious differences, they reflect two distinct sides of the American reality.
The Panama Canal story alone tells the story of the differences between the two men and their approaches to governance. With Latin America in turmoil and many Panamanians growing restive with U.S. control of the Canal Zone that not only cut their country in half, but also negatively impacted their society in other ways, Carter realized that it was time to negotiate a deal that respected Panama’s sovereignty. Trump, on the other hand, wants to renege on the treaty, asserting that the canal is “ours,” claiming that “we lost thousands of lives” building it. In fact, it’s estimated that, while over 25,000 Panamanians perished digging the canal, very few Americans died.
Additional contrasts between the two men would include: one was humble, the other always boastful; one devoted his life to others, the other a narcissist; one said “I will never lie to you” (and fact-checkers were unable to identify a single one), while fact-checkers have identified 33,000 falsehoods told by the other in just four years; one was faithful to his wife for 77 years—let’s just say that the other was not; one attributed his successes to others, the other boastfully claims everything for himself; and one was born in a small southern town and after his term in office returned to that simple life until his final days, the other was born into wealth in New York City and has surrounded himself with the trappings of ostentatious excess.
While all of these differences between the two must be noted, there are some characteristics they share. First and foremost is the fact that both were elected president of the United States as insurgents and agents of change because, in their respective eras, both understood and responded to a felt need in the public’s mood. Carter was elected while the nation was still reeling from the double traumas of Vietnam and the Nixon resignation. He parlayed his simple rural style to establish himself as the antithesis of a typical politician. He was comfortable and steady, and that’s what voters were craving back then. For his part, Trump understood that many voters had been unsettled by social, economic, political, and cultural changes and were reeling from multiple traumas from 9/11 and the failed war in Iraq to the aftershocks of the economic collapse of 2008-9. Voters were wary of typical politicians who either didn’t understand or didn’t care about just how angry and upset they were. Carter promised honesty and an end to turbulence. Trump promised to shake things up at whatever the cost.
There is another factor that unites these two former presidents: Despite their obvious differences, they reflect two distinct sides of the American reality. We are a nation capable of doing great and good things. We are also a nation that has shown itself to be capable of doing evil. We have welcomed millions of refugees, provided humanitarian support to those suffering in the wake of catastrophic events, and have led efforts to support equality and human rights. At the same time, we recall that our nation was born with the original sins of slavery and genocide; continues to struggle with racism; still has a xenophobic streak that periodically rears its head; and has committed or aided and abetted war crimes in countries as far flung as Vietnam, Iraq, Cuba, and Palestine.
We can never deny either of these sides of our nation’s history and “personality,” because in a real sense both are who we have been. And more importantly, both can be who we are today and who we can become in the future. If we allow ourselves to forget that the capacity for evil is always residing under the surface, we become vulnerable to its allure. At the same time, if we forget that we have the capacity to do good and great things, then we deny our ability to make things better and lose hope in our possibility to make change.
The funeral of Jimmy Carter just days away from the inauguration of Donald Trump has presented us with a choice and a challenge. Which path will we take, and which America will we become?
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Pardons for Trump's Insurrectionists Would Be Grotesque
Trump rewarding people who tried to ignite an insurrection turns the pardon power on its head.
Jan 11, 2025
President-elect Donald Trump says that, on the same day that he is inaugurated for his 2.0 presidency, he will pardon people who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “It’s going to start in the first hour,” he told Time magazine when they interviewed him for their cover story after naming him man of the year, “Maybe the first nine minutes.”
On the campaign trail, Trump described the January 6 rioters as “political prisoners,” conveniently forgetting the fact that those progressing through the criminal justice system were charged by grand juries and convicted by either juries or federal judges. He calls them “great patriots,” even opening his first campaign rally in Waco, Texas, with “Justice for All,” a song recorded over the phone by imprisoned insurrectionists, set to the tune of the “Star Spangled Banner.”
Pardoning them would be, as Brennan Center President Michael Waldman has said, a misuse of the president’s clemency power. And indeed, two-thirds of Americans oppose it, according to a recent Washington Post poll.
Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution gives broad power to presidents to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States,” excepting only “Cases of Impeachment.” The power to both pardon crimes and commute sentences is unrestricted in any other way, except, perhaps, by the still-untested-in-the-courts limitation that a president may not pardon himself.
In other words, Trump can pardon the January 6 defendants. He would not violate the law or exceed the power extended to him by the Constitution if he did so. But while it would not technically be an abuse of his power to do so, it would be an appalling, unprecedented violation of the trust the American people place in their leaders.
In mid-December, President Biden pardoned 39 individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes and commuted the sentences of some 1,500 additional people who had qualified for early release from prison during the Covid-19 pandemic and succeeded in reentering their communities. He reflected on the exercise of the pardon power when he took that action, saying, “I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities.” The group includes “parents, veterans, health care professionals, teachers, advocates, and engaged members of their communities.”
By contrast, according to reporting compiled by NBC’s Ryan Reilly, the January 6 defendants were captured on video brandishing and using firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive Trump billboard, Trump flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches, and even an explosive device during the attack on the Capitol. More than 140 police officers were injured and members of Congress fled the building in fear for their lives. (Biden’s commutation of sentences for 37 people on death row should not be conflated with Trump’s proposed action. Commutation means they will serve the rest of their lives in prison instead of being executed, a far cry from the immediate release Trump has discussed for January 6 defendants.)
It’s even worse if Trump intends to pardon members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys organizations convicted of seditious conspiracy, something that he has not ruled out. Judge Amit Mehta, who sentenced the Oath Keepers’ leader, Yale Law School graduate Stewart Rhodes, to 18-years in prison for seditious conspiracy said, “The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved is frightening — and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy.”
If Trump pardons January 6 rioters, he would be using the pardon power to erase an attack on Constitution and country. The purpose of that attack was his personal benefit — if it had succeeded, it could have permitted him to stay in power after losing the election, contrary to every principle of American democracy. An exercise of the pardon power along those lines would have no resemblance to what the Founding Fathers intended. The pardon power, which was only included after extensive debate, was based on the English “prerogative of mercy” that resided in kings and queens to undo punishment that was deemed too harsh. It was not about rewarding political loyalists.
Pardoning people convicted of plotting to interfere with the lawful and peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election isn’t a righteous grant of mercy. Few of these defendants have shown remorse and some have shown outright defiance, like Ryan Grillo, who said, “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways” after Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced him in December. The January 6 offenders Trump has committed to pardoning aren’t people who committed nonviolent crimes in their late teens and early twenties and, having served significant portions of their sentence, are now prepared to return to their communities as rehabilitated individuals deserving of a second chance. If anything, the January 6 defendants’ return would give a boost to the white supremacist and domestic terror groups many of them participated in before they overran the Capitol, and it would severely dampen the deterrent effect of our laws against future aggression.
It has been the practice in most recent administrations to use the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice to review requests for pardons and commutations before they are handed up to the White House counsel and the president for a decision. That process includes an extensive evaluation of each individual applicant’s request, including consultation with prosecutors, lawyers, judges, victims, probation officers, prison staff and others to determine whether the requested clemency would serve the interests of justice without endangering the community. Pardons have often been used in the interests of equal justice when people are serving lengthy sentences that would no longer be handed down or in cases of extraordinary rehabilitation when people have demonstrated a commitment to the future of their communities. None of those considerations will be in play if Trump pardons January 6 offenders.
The key to Trump’s pardons is that they are not about people and their communities. They are about personal loyalty to him. Trump summoned these individuals to the Capitol to support him and now he will pardon them to complete that transaction. Trump will use the pardon power to make it clear that violence and violation of the law can be forgiven in service to himself.
Pardoning the rioters is a grotesque misuse of the pardon power because, cloaked in the appearance of lawful authority, it would put the presidential seal on crimes that go to the heart of an attack on our democracy, an effort to undo the will of the voters and seat a man who lost an election as the country’s leader. By advertising his willingness to pardon the people who supported him rather than the Constitution, Trump is sending a message to the people he is counting on to support him this go-round: If they protect him, he will take care of them. It’s a message fit for a would-be authoritarian.
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Raskin Says Alito Must Recuse After Private Call With Trump
"Alito claims it was to help a former clerk get a job," wrote one legal commentator. "Doesn't matter. Federal law requires Alito now be DISQUALIFIED from the Trump stay petition."
Jan 09, 2025
Following the revelation that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had a private phone call with Trump the day before Trump's legal team petitioned the Supreme Court to halt his sentencing in his New York "hush money" case, Congressman Jamie Raskin was among those Thursday who called for Alito's recusal from the high profile case.
ABC News first reported the call between Trump and Alito, which took place Tuesday, and that Alito subsequently claimed concerned one of Alito's former law clerks, who is seeking a job in the new administration. "William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position," Alito explained to ABC News in a statement.
On Wednesday morning, Trump's legal team filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in New York court on on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Alito said that he and Trump did not discuss Trump's emergency request.
Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, denounced the call as a "breach of judicial ethics" in a statement Thursday, adding "especially when paired with his troubling past partisan ideological activity in favor of Trump, Justice Alito's decision to have a personal phone call with President Trump—who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court—makes clear that he fundamentally misunderstands the basic requirements of judicial ethics or, more likely, believes himself to be above judicial ethics altogether."
Trump's legal team also appealed to the New York Court of Appeals to postpone the sentencing, which was rejected Thursday, a day after a state appeals court in New York also rejected the request. The sentencing is slated to take place on Friday.
Other court watchers also blasted Alito for the phone call.
President of the watchdog Accountable.US Caroline Ciccone urged Alito to recuse himself from all upcoming cases in which Trump is a named party. "In addition, Congress should investigate Alito's—and other justices'—lapses in judicial ethics in order to strengthen the Court's lax code of conduct. Anything less would confirm what so many already fear: that the Court has become overtly political and a playground for the powerful," she wrote.
"Alito claims it was to help a former clerk get a job. Doesn't matter. Federal law requires Alito now be DISQUALIFIED from the Trump stay petition," wrote Tristan Snell, a lawyer and legal commentator, on Wednesday.
This is not the first time that Alito has engendered this type of scrutiny. Last year, following revelations that flags carried by Trump supporters who took part in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol were seen flying outside Alito's homes, Alito faced calls to recuse himself from a case two cases: one dealing with Trump's claims of presidential immunity and another on the question of whether defendants who participated in the January 6, 2021 attempted insurrection should be charged with obstructing an official proceeding. Alito rejected the calls to step aside.
"Every federal judge and justice knows he or she must avoid situations such as this. Yet Justice Alito did not," said Raskin.
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