It was a year ago this week when Donald Trump again vowed to issue presidential pardons to Jan. 6 rioters, but that’s not all the former president said about those who attacked the Capitol in his name. In fact, the Republican broke new ground by raising the specter of extending financial support to the rioters, too.
“I am financially supporting people that are incredible and … they’re very much in my mind,” Trump said on Sept. 1, 2022.
As we discussed soon after, it was jarring for obvious reasons: The former president — the ostensible leader of one of the nation’s two political parties and the presumptive front-runner for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination — wants to give pardons, apologies, and money to political radicals who launched an insurrectionist attack on his own country’s Capitol.
It’s not altogether clear whether Trump followed through on his vow to “financially support” Jan. 6 criminal defendants, but his comments came to mind after seeing this NBC News report, published Wednesday:
Trump participated in a fundraiser last night for Jan. 6 defendants, a source familiar with the event told NBC News. The event was held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because this wasn’t the first such event at which he appeared. NBC News also reported in June:
Former President Trump spoke on Thursday at a fundraiser on behalf of people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — even as he faces scrutiny from national and state prosecutors for his own actions surrounding the attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
Jeffrey Clark, the since-indicted former Justice Department official, also spoke at the event.
It was at this same event, which was also hosted at his private golf club in New Jersey, at which the Republican vowed, “I’m going to make a contribution.”
Again, whether Trump ever actually wrote a check is unclear, but either way, by participating in multiple fundraisers for Jan. 6 defendants, the former president is helping direct resources to the rioters.
All of this seemed unlikely in early 2021. Revisiting our earlier coverage, in the immediate aftermath of the assault on the Capitol, members of the White House Cabinet began conversations about removing Trump from office by way of the 25th Amendment. He and his team decided he needed “cover” to remain in the White House.
And so, the then-president said on Jan. 7, “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem.” He went on to describe the riot as a “heinous attack.”
Reading from a prepared text, Trump added: “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. … To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: You do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: You will pay.” Five days later, the Republican condemned the “mob [that] stormed the Capitol and trashed the halls of government.” On the final full day of his term, again reading from a script, Trump added: “All Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated.” In the months that followed, however, Trump struggled to keep up the pretense that he almost certainly never believed in the first place. By May 2021, the former president was suggesting the rioters were victims. He eventually started describing them as “patriots.” Now, Trump has released a song with Jan. 6 inmates, vowed to issue pardons, raised the specter of official government apologies, and headlined multiple fundraisers for Jan. 6 defendants, even as the Republican faces felony charges for his role in trying to overturn his election defeat. The word “unrepentant” keeps coming to mind.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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