By james art 
DORAL, Fla. (AP) — A key ally of President Donald Trump says the White House’s pardon of rioters who clashed with police while storming the U.S. Capitol in 2021 “sends the wrong signal” and expressed concern on the future consequences of issuing broad pardons.
“I’ve always said that I think when you pardon people who attack police officers, you send the wrong signal to the general public,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican close to Trump, told CNN on Sunday. “That’s not what you want to do to protect the cops.”
Within hours of taking office last week, Trump issued a sweeping pardon covering about 1,500 insurgents for their role in the attack on the Capitol that sought to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. in Congress on January 6, 2021.
Among those released from prison was Stuart Rhodes, founder of the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers, who masterminded the plot that led to the attack. Rhodes was among a large group of supporters who stood and cheered behind Trump on stage as the president gave a speech at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday before flying to Florida to spend the rest of the weekend at his resort in Doral.
Asked if Rhodes attended the rally, Graham said, “I don’t think there’s any restriction on him being there.” The senator also noted that Biden has used his own string of pardons, including using his last hours in office to issue general pardons for their relatives and leading government officials.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it either way. And I think the audience doesn’t like it either,” Graham said. “So if this continues, if this is the norm, there could be an attempt to rein in the president’s pardon power as an institution.”
He said he saw what happened with the blanket pardons “as a bigger precedent” and that he was “concerned” about the future consequences.
“I’ve made it clear that I don’t like it when President Trump pardons people who beat cops. But I didn’t like it when Biden pardoned his whole family on the way out,” he said.
The senator made similar comments Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying that while Trump “has the legal authority” to issue such pardons, “I’m afraid you’re going to get more violence.”
“Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and brutally beat a police officer, I think was a mistake,” he said.
Graham is not the only Trump ally to fight Trump’s Jan. 6 insurgent pardons.
Vice President JD Vance said more than a week before Trump issued the pardon, “Obviously, if you committed violence on that day, you should not be pardoned.” But in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday, Vance said Trump and his team carefully reviewed the individual cases of Capitol insurgents and “made the right decision” with the pardons.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.