OPINION:
As there has been significant criticism of President Trump’s pardon and commutation of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, let us remember that most of the people pardoned did not commit any violence (“Pardoned Jan. 6 defendants celebrate outside the D.C. jail,” Web, Jan. 21). Let’s also not forget that after the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson gave full amnesty to all Confederate soldiers found guilty of treason.
More recently, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted the sentences of three Puerto Rican nationalists who shot five members of Congress from the balcony in the House Chamber. President Bill Clinton commuted the sentence of Susan Rosenberg, a radical member of the violent Weather Underground, who set off a bomb inside the Capitol during the anti-Vietnam War protests.
Where’s the outrage for presidents granting clemency for those more serious, violent acts at the Capitol?
PAUL KAMENAR
Counsel, National Legal and Policy Center
Chevy Chase, Maryland
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