Vance Says Trump Won’t Issue Pardons for Violent Jan. 6 Defendants

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the vice president-elect, departs from the Senate chambers during a vote in the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 18, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Vice President-elect JD Vance said on Jan. 12 that individuals who were violent during the U.S. Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021, “obviously” should not be pardoned. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to use his clemency power for people who have been charged in connection with the incident over the past four years.

Those who “protested peacefully” on Jan. 6 should receive a pardon, Vance told Fox News. He added that there is also a “little bit of a gray area” in some of those cases.

“I think it’s very simple,” Vance said. “If you protested peacefully on Jan. 6 and you’ve had [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the Capitol breach, according to Department of Justice records. A number of people were charged with misdemeanor offenses for entering the Capitol in an unauthorized manner, and some were charged with felonies.

Leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys groups were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to use violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to then-President-elect Joe Biden.

Vance said on Jan. 12 that he believes that “a lot of people” have been “prosecuted unfairly” over the past several years.

“We need to rectify that,” Vance said. “We’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law.”

Also on the morning of Jan. 12, Vance responded to critics on social media who said that his comments to Fox News didn’t go far enough, with some saying that all Jan. 6 defendants should be pardoned.

“I’ve been defending these guys for years,” Vance wrote on social media platform X. “The president saying he’ll look at each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback ... I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial.”

That comment came in response to a prominent conservative social media account’s statement on Jan. 12 that new footage has shown “cops shooting innocent J6 protesters and [Vance] goes on Fox News and tells the world that only non violent protesters should get pardoned ... better rethink what you just said JD.”

Vance noted that he donated to a Jan. 6 “political prisoner fund” and was criticized over it during his run for Ohio’s Senate seat.

In a wide-ranging news conference last week at his Florida Mar-a-Lago residence, Trump suggested that he would initiate “major pardons” for individuals arrested in the aftermath of Jan. 6.

A reporter asked him, “You said on your first day of office you were going to pardon Jan. 6 defendants. Are you planning to pardon those who were charged with violent offenses?”

“Well, we’re looking at it, and we have other people in there,” Trump said.

“People that didn’t even walk into the building are in jail right now.

“We’ll be looking at the whole thing. But I’ll be making major pardons, yes.”

The president-elect has said on multiple occasions that he would carry out the pardons quickly after he is sworn into office on Jan. 20.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.