In an interview published Friday by New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), US navy veteran Jason Riddle said: “It’s almost like [Trump] was trying to say it didn’t happen. And it happened. I did those things, and they weren’t pardonable.
“I don’t want the pardon. And I … reject the pardon.”
Riddle entered the US Senate parliamentarian’s office, drank a bottle of wine, stole a book and inflicted damage at the Capitol when Trump supporters attacked the building on 6 January 2021 in a desperate attempt to the then president in office after he lost the presidency to Joe Biden weeks earlier, according to court documents. He received a 90-day prison sentence and was fined $750 in April 2022 for pleading guilty to committing misdemeanors in an attack that was linked to several deaths, including officer suicides.
Depends on your perspective on prisons. If they are about punishment, yeah. But if they are about rehabilitation, denying those pardons kinda proves you are ready to be part of civil society again.
These people have very short sentences that might already be served. The pardon is more about lending credibility to what they did in the first place. I am 1000% in favor of prison reform, but this isn’t that.
Yeah, parole might be a better option.
That said, most of the pardonees are unrepentant nazis so obviously the pardons are not going to be for the common good.