By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
A partisan, Democrat-led resolution condemning pardons issued for all involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, protests in Washington, D.C., is expected to be introduced Monday in the Colorado Senate.
Senate Joint Resolution 25-006, led by Democrat Sens. Nick Hinrichsen and Matt Ball and prime-sponsored by Democrat Reps. Sean Camacho and Michael Carter, is a measure overtly blaming President Donald J. Trump for the protests.
“Following President Trump’s speech at The Ellipse, rally attendees marched to the U.S. Capitol and many began rioting, with official FBI estimates concluding that between 2,000 and 2,500 people forcibly and illegally breached the Capitol,” the measure reads, noting “many scholars” described the event as an “attempted self-coup” and “an insurrection.”
The measure claims capitol police were “attacked” by protestors, which it calls “insurrectionists”, with all manner of weapons, including “brass knuckles, pickaxes, tomahawks, flagpoles, pepper spray, knives, fire extinguishers, stolen police riot shields, batons, fencing, destroyed furniture, and other makeshift weapons.”
The measure fails to qualify that among all persons charged, no protester was ever charged with insurrection. Four of the 146 who pled guilty to felony charges pled guilty to seditious conspiracy, among 1,488 charged with any manner of offense.
President Trump pardoned or commuted sentences of the protestors on Jan. 20, 2025.
“Those pardons erode the rule of law and signal an acceptance of political violence, so long as the violence was committed by those who support President Trump,” the measure reads.