The Chaos of Blanket Pardons

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Speaker 2 hello

Speaker 3 hey this is actually hannah rosen i'm calling on my son's phone

Speaker 7 how are you

Speaker 8 uh you sound happy i am i just got done falling

Speaker 8 oh my gosh falling is in crying hard i think everything just came out i was just holding it in for the last how many years

Speaker 12 That was Marie Jonatakis, whose husband Taylor was just pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Speaker 13 He'd been been sentenced to over seven years for what he did at the Capitol on January 6th.

Speaker 11 Now, he's coming home.

Speaker 14 This is Radio Atlantic.

Speaker 2 I'm Hanna Rosen.

Speaker 13 A few hours into his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Speaker 14 Some had been charged with serious felonies like assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.

Speaker 11 Others were charged with misdemeanors like trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Speaker 14 I've gotten to know a lot of January Sixers over the last couple of years, so I know how these prosecutions have upended their lives.

Speaker 13 And I know that for a lot of them, the pardons have restored their sense of justice.

Speaker 14 For them, This week feels like the world is set right again.

Speaker 11 And as I checked in with them this week and hung out outside the DC jail, mostly I just saw the chasm more clearly.

Speaker 19 How one person's order restored is another person's lawless abandon.

Speaker 8 I know this is going to sound crazy, but I have just really felt like Trump will do what he says he's going to do.

Speaker 8 And so ever since that, I was like, well, if Taylor gets pardoned, it will be the first day.

Speaker 20 And so...

Speaker 11 Three weeks ago, when her world was still in chaos, Marie Jonatakis bought a one-way ticket home for Taylor.

Speaker 5 Trump had mentioned that he might pardon all the January Sixers, but you could never be sure.

Speaker 19 Politicians don't usually do what they say, her daughter told her.

Speaker 22 And for a family whose only working parent had been in jail for more than a year, an airline ticket is a luxury.

Speaker 11 But Marie had watched the video over and over of Trump telling an NBC reporter that he would pardon the J Sixers on day one of taking office.

Speaker 23 We're going to look at everything. We're going to look at individuals.
Every places, yeah. Okay.
But I'm going to be acting very quickly.

Speaker 16 within your first 100 days, first day, first day, first day, yeah.

Speaker 10 I'm looking forward to issue these pardons, these people and then

Speaker 20 on day one, the world flipped, sir,

Speaker 24 yes, sir. First, we have a list of pardons and commutations relating to events that occurred on January 6th, 2021.

Speaker 23 Okay, and how many people is this?

Speaker 24 I think this order will apply to approximately 1,500 people, sir.

Speaker 23 So, this is January 6th, and these are the hostages,

Speaker 23 Approximately 1,500 for a pardon.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 23 Full pardon.

Speaker 5 On Monday night, just before midnight, Marie finally picked Taylor up from prison, and she sent me a picture.

Speaker 4 They sat side by side, smiling, like a late Christmas card photo. Marie hasn't sat side by side with her husband since he was taken into custody just before Christmas 2023.

Speaker 11 I asked her if she thought his transition home would be rocky, and she said, no, it'll be seamless.

Speaker 11 Taylor has written each of their five children a letter a week from prison, and he sometimes reads them books over the phone.

Speaker 19 In her mind, family harmony will be quickly restored, and so will the rightness of all things.

Speaker 8 I mean, this started with January 6, four years ago, and

Speaker 8 we were the scum of the earth. We were domestic terrorists.
We were people that you were supposed to be afraid of.

Speaker 8 Every time Trump had anything with criminal charges or anything like that, like he really has been our hope for

Speaker 8 anything that would ever mean a pardon for us.

Speaker 8 And so

Speaker 8 a lot of us feel like it was one miracle after another.

Speaker 8 Like, and people don't look to Trump. Like, they really,

Speaker 8 people in the movement on the chats when I'm on and stuff like that, don't look to him as like a savior. But I think a lot of the people,

Speaker 8 almost everyone has like a faith, like a faith in God, a faith in Jesus.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 it's a lot of like,

Speaker 8 you know, for us, it's a miracle.

Speaker 2 There is a whole other way that these pardons could have rolled out.

Speaker 11 A little more than a week before inauguration, Vice President J.D. Vance made it clear to Fox News that he wasn't expecting blanket pardons.

Speaker 27 If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. And there's a little bit of a gray area there, but we're very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law.

Speaker 27 And there are a lot of people we have.

Speaker 11 During the transition, I spoke with Republican lawyers who imagined there might be some kind of review board, like maybe a Justice Department committee that would evaluate cases such as Taylor's.

Speaker 22 Taylor was not among the several hundred convicted solely of misdemeanors, such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.

Speaker 14 But also, he was not among the small handful convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Speaker 18 His assault charge hung on the fact that he was yelling into his bullhorn, urging a crowd to push a barricade into a row of cops, all captured on video.

Speaker 18 One, two, three, go!

Speaker 18 And under the J.D. Vance scenario, there would have been qualified lawyers debating in a room about degrees of assault and what length of sentence they merit.

Speaker 11 But instead, Trump chose to go with a blanket pardon, which sounds uncomplicated, but actually brings maximum chaos.

Speaker 18 Tuesday night, I was walking down my own street past a house that I know well.

Speaker 11 It's kind of a safe house for January 6ers. Mickey Withoff lives there.

Speaker 14 She's the mother of Ashley Babbitt, who was killed at the Capitol that day.

Speaker 22 So does Nicole Ruffett, whose husband Guy, was sentenced to over seven years for bringing a gun to the Capitol.

Speaker 17 Occasionally, a young January 6er named Brandon Fellows stays there too.

Speaker 11 My partner, Lauren Ober, and I got to know the people in that house last year when we made an Atlantic podcast about it called We Live Here Now.

Speaker 7 I've walked by their house hundreds of times.

Speaker 11 But when I walked past the house on Tuesday, in freezing weather, I saw Brandon outside wearing an ice jacket as in Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Speaker 20 This is his version of a sartorial troll.

Speaker 7 Oh, so what's going on?

Speaker 25 I guess I don't even know the basics of what's going on.

Speaker 30 Last I heard was from Jen Baker. We were at

Speaker 30 lunch with Stuart Rhodes, the breakfast with Stuart Rhodes today.

Speaker 19 He's here?

Speaker 30 Yes, but we've all been up and he's taking a nap real quick.

Speaker 30 We just got back, but is he staying here?

Speaker 10 I froze.

Speaker 28 And not from the cold.

Speaker 14 Stuart Rhodes, the guy with the eye patch who founded the Oath Keepers.

Speaker 28 He for years recruited and cultivated an armed militia to resist government tyranny.

Speaker 22 His estranged ex-wife recently said she fears that she and their kids are on his, quote, kill list.

Speaker 14 Rhodes' attorneys have said that the idea that his family's in danger is unfounded.

Speaker 19 Before Trump's commutation, he was serving an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, one of the longest of all the January 6ers.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 28 Stuart Rhodes was taking a nap down the block from my house.

Speaker 15 More on that after the break.

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Speaker 11 While Rhodes was napping in her house, Nicole Reffit was outside, being interviewed by a Dutch news crew.

Speaker 19 Her family is notorious because her son, Jackson, turned in his father to the FBI.

Speaker 26 Someone adapted the trial transcript into an excellent play called Fatherland.

Speaker 11 Anyway, this week, her husband Guy was about to get out of prison.

Speaker 28 But unlike Marie Janatakis, Nicole seemed a little unsettled about the pardon.

Speaker 25 How do you guys feel about the blanket pardon?

Speaker 33 You know, I was never a fan of that.

Speaker 33 I guess he thought it was the quickest way, pull the band-aid off.

Speaker 33 I was was more in favor of commutations and then let's look at everything because not only did people do bad things that day, but there were some charges that were absolutely wielded like a weapon against people.

Speaker 33 And those things also need to be looked at because, you know, I don't want anyone to have to go through this.

Speaker 33 And that's my biggest concern.

Speaker 25 What do you mean, concern? Like, I don't know how to think about the blanket pardon either, Nicole. I'm trying to think what's the difference between this and if it had gone a different way.

Speaker 25 Like, what does it mean that it's a blanket? Have you guys talked about that?

Speaker 33 All charges are gone.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 33 You know, and

Speaker 33 I'm a law and order gal, really.

Speaker 33 And so, not all charges should be gone. People did really bad things that day.

Speaker 31 In many people's minds, Nicole's husband, Guy, was one of the people who did really bad things that day, and he did get a fair sentence.

Speaker 11 Guy brought a gun to the Capitol, although he didn't enter the building or use it.

Speaker 33 Well, yeah, I never expected him not to have something.

Speaker 33 You know, like I figured he'd be charged with something, you know, because it was so significant. But it was just so over the top to me, all of the charges.
And that has always been my biggest issue.

Speaker 18 As of Wednesday, only eight of the 22 people held at the DC jail had been released.

Speaker 11 But outside the jail had turned into gathering plays for people released from all over the country.

Speaker 22 Camera crews stood around from Sweden, Japan, Norway, broadcasting interviews with the newly freed.

Speaker 9 And when Bob Marley's redemption song came on the speakers, the crowd belted it out together.

Speaker 14 On Tuesday night, I caught a glimpse of Stuart Rhodes at the edge of the crowd.

Speaker 11 He's hard to miss with the eye patch.

Speaker 18 He was giving an interview to a right-wing YouTuber.

Speaker 23 It's the day of celebration.

Speaker 23 Yesterday it was too. When President Trump was inaugurated, it was awesome.
You know, like he said himself, you know, God saved him to save America, and I believe that's true.

Speaker 23 And then he turned on and saved us last night. I mean, restored us to our freedom.
I mean, I'm not 100% restored yet. I'll still wait for a pardon, but it's so wonderful to be out of those bars.
And

Speaker 11 that's Rhodes' one big complaint, that he was given a commutation instead of a pardon.

Speaker 20 A commutation can erase a sentence, but it does not restore all your rights, such as the right to buy guns.

Speaker 9 He told the interviewer he was applying for a pardon.

Speaker 26 He said, I think everyone deserves a pardon

Speaker 11 without any exception.

Speaker 23 It's impossible to get a fair trial here if you're a Trump supporter. And so you don't have an unbiased jury, an impartial jury.
You don't have an impartial judge.

Speaker 23 You don't have a jury that's going to hold the government to its standard beyond reasonable doubt. It's just not going to happen.

Speaker 23 So if you have no chance of a fair trial, then you should be presumed innocent. And that's

Speaker 23 put back in your natural state, which is an innocent free human being.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 19 that's Rhodes's version of history.

Speaker 10 They were sham trials.

Speaker 11 It was actually a day of peace.

Speaker 19 It's a revision of history.

Speaker 11 Trump and his allies are likely to try and push and push for the next four years.

Speaker 11 House Speaker Mike Johnson has already formed a select subcommittee on January 6th to, quote, continue our efforts to uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people.

Speaker 17 But for a whole crew of other people involved in January 6th, these pardons represent a reversal of justice.

Speaker 22 January 6th did not require delicate forensics.

Speaker 11 It has to be one of the most well-documented crimes in modern history. There are tens of thousands of hours of video showing rioters beating up police with whatever tools are at hand.

Speaker 14 At least five people died for reasons that are in some way related to the insurrection.

Speaker 3 Some 140 police officers were injured, and many could never work again.

Speaker 11 On Wednesday, retired officer Michael Fanone had choice words for Rhodes, which he expressed live on CNN.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I mean, this is what I would say to Stuart Rhodes.

Speaker 6 Go f yourself.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 6 You're a liar.

Speaker 16 We didn't obviously get to beep that word out, but obviously.

Speaker 31 Fanone said he's worried for his safety and that of his family.

Speaker 17 The judge who sentenced Taylor Jonatakis, Judge Royce Lamberth, wrote a letter in connection with the sentencing.

Speaker 26 He wrote, political violence rots republics.

Speaker 20 Therefore, January 6th must not become a precedent for further violence against political opponents or governmental institutions.

Speaker 3 Lamberth is 81.

Speaker 11 His wife died a few months ago. He had a handful of new January 6th cases on his docket, but of course they've disappeared.

Speaker 13 In that sentencing letter, he continued, this is not normal.

Speaker 12 We tried to reach him to talk about the pardons, by the way, but he wasn't ready to talk about them yet.

Speaker 34 And we'll continue to give him that voice. My husband's being processed out of Oklahoma right now.

Speaker 35 Can't wait to see that man.

Speaker 35 He will be here in D.C.

Speaker 34 tomorrow. And you know what? We're getting freedom, baby.

Speaker 34 That's right. We're getting freedom.

Speaker 27 They're getting, we are getting freedom.

Speaker 35 And that's absolutely right.

Speaker 5 At the Tuesday night rally, Nicole got a call from Guy.

Speaker 14 He was out on the road,

Speaker 12 headed towards the airport.

Speaker 2 He was in the car.

Speaker 6 He's in the car.

Speaker 34 He's in a car.

Speaker 34 In a car.

Speaker 7 Stuart Rhodes told the crowd that he was headed back to California this week.

Speaker 15 As for Marie and Taylor, they fly home on Thursday.

Speaker 18 Marie told me the kids are going to make dinner.

Speaker 11 This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae West and Kevin Townsend.

Speaker 14 It was edited by Claudina Bade, engineered by Rob Smirciak, and fact-checked by Steph Hayes.

Speaker 11 Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

Speaker 2 I'm Hannah Rosen.

Speaker 17 Thank you for listening.

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