Trump pardons or commutes 1500 Jan 6th defendants.

That is nearly everyone who was arrested and convicted.

This is way more sweeping than most people expected. I sure more will come out on who was actually pardoned versus who just had sentences commuted. Sounds like there was a list of those who were commuted, while the rest were given a pardon. Apparently there are six more people who he is currently looking at.

I am sort of glad he did this on his first day, thus no chance for Democrats to be made at Pam Bondi or anyone else for not stopping him. It was a big issue for Democrats during her confirmation hearings that she should be "advising" the President on this, of course, by "advising" they mean telling him no.

I guess I have never had an issue with full pardons of anyone not accused of any personal violence, but the manner in which the Justice Department brought charges made identifying that difficult, as they lumped in assaulting, impeding, and resisting officers into one category and charges hundreds for that charge in spite of little or no evidence of any altercations with capitol police. At the same time, I was never in favor of full pardons on those who were violent. That being said, there is a reasonable argument to be made that many violent protesters (especially those involved in social justice or political riots) are not charged and hardly ever face consequences. Why these protesters and why this protest?

Obviously Trump sees the entire event as justified and the entire prosecution as corrupt. I wouldn't go that far, but I would argue that the entire event was not as unique as some would like to claim, and that the prosecution was unique in how hard they went after "these" protesters.