Jan. 6 lawmakers say pardons given 'not for breaking the law but upholding it'

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the two leaders of the now-disbanded Jan. 6 committee, thanked former President Biden for a pardon they said was “not for breaking the law but upholding it.”

Just hours before leaving office, Biden announced he would issue pardons for all the members of the committee — even as some had previously suggested they did not want one.

The statement — issued on behalf of all nine members of the panel — said they were “not deterred" from their work despite numerous threats.

“We express our gratitude to President Biden for recognizing that we and our families have been continuously targeted not only with harassment, lies and threats of criminal violence, but also with specific threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment by members of the incoming administration, simply for doing our jobs and upholding our oaths of office. We have been pardoned today not for breaking the law but for upholding it,” the two said in a statement.

“These are indeed ‘extraordinary circumstances’ when public servants are pardoned to prevent false prosecution by the government for having worked faithfully as Members of Congress to expose the facts of a months-long criminal effort to override the will of the voters after the 2020 elections, including by inciting a violent insurrection to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. Such a prosecution would be ordered and conducted by persons who led this unprecedented attack on our constitutional system.”

President Trump has lobbed numerous threats and insults at the members of the panel. He suggested Cheney should be shot by a firing squad and also said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was part of the “enemy within.”

The statement on the pardons represents a turnaround for some of the members.

Many had previously said they were not interested in a pardon as they had not committed any crimes by investigating the effort to block the peaceful transfer of power.

Their final report pinned Trump as being at the center of an unlawful campaign to remain in power by pressuring those across government and later inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol.

Some of the panel’s members had said a pardon would be unnecessary and would send the wrong message. Members would likely be insulated from any prosecution related to their work, as the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution bars such actions.

“I don’t want to see each president hereafter on their way out the door giving out a broad category of pardons,” Schiff told CNN earlier this month.

He had previously called the pardons “defensive and unnecessary.”

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