Tom Dreisbach
Appearances
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
Right. So almost every single defendant got a full unconditional pardon. That means their conviction is forgiven. If they're locked up, they get released. If they were convicted of a felony, they get their gun rights back. And that group includes more than 400 people charged or convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement, driving a stun gun into an officer's necks, for example.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
beating officers with a bat. And then just 14 people are getting these commutations. So they still have a felony on the record, but they are getting out of prison. And all of those people are linked to the far-right groups involved in January 6th, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Most of that group were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
But I should say the headline here is everyone charged in connection with January 6th, whether they pleaded guilty or lost at trial, whether they assaulted cops or not, whether they were found to be violent extremists or not, they are all getting relief from Trump.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
Well, yeah, members of the incoming administration had said this would not happen. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News earlier this month that, quote, obviously, they should not pardon people who assaulted police. In fact, Trump has embraced, however, even the violent January 6th defendants for years.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
At his rallies, he featured a song with the January 6th defendants recorded on a jailhouse phone singing the Star Spangled Banner. He calls them hostages, says they were treated unfairly. And even rioters were attending inaugural events, including a rioter named Timothy Hale Cusinelli. who prosecutors described as a Nazi sympathizer.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
And he once went to work at a naval base with a Hitler mustache, compared Orthodox Jews to a plague of locusts. And he actually posted his invite to the inauguration on social media.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
Well, federal law enforcement said that January 6th and the attack then was an act of domestic terrorism and they launched the largest single criminal investigation in the history of the Justice Department in response. Trump has essentially undone all of that with the stroke of a pen. And for police officers who were hurt, their families, this was the worst case scenario.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
They are watching people who assaulted them or their family member get out of prison. Of course, many defendants, on the other hand, are celebrating today. Jacob Chansley, the rioter many people know as the QAnon shaman, the guy with the horns that was seen in the Capitol, he said he's going to buy some guns now that he can legally.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
And then there's the larger concern I've heard from counterterrorism experts, extremism experts, that this essentially is an endorsement of political violence by the incoming Trump administration. as long as that violence is against Trump's opponents. The Proud Boys have kept a much lower profile since January 6th, but they were actually back out on the streets in D.C. on Inauguration Day.
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Trump Day One, Immigration, January 6 Pardons
And given their history of violence, that has a lot of people worried.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
Good morning.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
Well, many January 6th defendants had no criminal records at all. But we found dozens of cases where people had a significant criminal history. One example that really sticks out is the case of Matthew Huddle. He pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in the Capitol. And he also had a lengthy criminal record, including for drunk driving,
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
And there's one incident that I should say people listening might find disturbing. Prosecutors said, quote, Huddle spanked his three-year-old son so hard that he left bruises all over the child's backside and the child's neck. And the child had such extreme pain on his backside that he could not sit properly for a week.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
Then even after Huddle took part in the Capitol riot, he continued to rack up charges for driving offenses in Indiana. And just a few days after Trump pardoned him for his January 6th case, he actually just got pulled over again by police in Indiana. We don't have a lot of details. It is under investigation. But we know a sheriff's deputy shot and killed him during an altercation.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
Well, federal judges always factor in defendants' criminal history when they decide on a sentence. One example, defendant was Peter Schwartz. Court records indicate he had 38 criminal convictions before he assaulted police with pepper spray on January 6th. And that's one reason he got a really lengthy sentence, 14 years in prison for his January 6th charges.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
And then Trump pardoned him, so he obviously did not finish that prison sentence. Trump has said, in general, these defendants got sentences that were too long But the White House did not make any distinction between people who had a criminal record and those who did not.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
When I reached out to the White House, they did not respond. But Trump has made some comments recently on Fox News where he seemed to say that it would have just been too difficult to evaluate all of the January 6th charges individually.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
Yes. There's an example of a January 6th defendant named Theodore Middendorf. He separately pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a seven-year-old child. He is still facing a lengthy prison sentence in Illinois on that case. Another defendant, David Daniel, is facing allegations that he sexually abused two young girls in his family and possessed child sexual abuse images. He has pleaded not guilty.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
That case is ongoing. That is NPR's Tom Dreisbach.
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D.C. Plane Crash, Migrant Housing At Guantanamo, January 6th Criminal Records
Thank you.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in his book, War and Warriors, that Brown should be fired because he was pushing diversity programs and questioned whether he got the job because of the color of his skin or his skill. Texas said he made the race car his biggest calling card.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
Now, Brown did make an emotional video after the death of George Floyd, recalling his discrimination he felt rising through the ranks in the Air Force. But Brown's an accomplished F-16 pilot, held numerous commands. And also, it was Trump during his first term who nominated him to become Air Force chief.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
General Kane, he's an F-16 pilot like C.Q. Brown. He rose up through the ranks and met Trump while he was stationed in Baghdad back in 2018-19. And Trump said, Kane told him that ISIS could be defeated quickly. And Trump said he delivered. What's important to note, Scott, is that Brown came up with the strategy to defeat ISIS.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
He was going to treat it as a state, not as a terror group where you provide air support to the Kurdish fighters on the ground. He went after their infrastructure, went after their banks. That's what ended the Islamic State. You know, that's something that Trump never mentioned. And Dan Cain more recently spent time working at the CIA.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
Several people I spoke with at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill said they had to Google him. He's a retired three-star, so he'll have to come back on active duty, be promoted to four-star rank, and will need Senate approval.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
Well, again, Hegseth said in his book, you know, she was chosen because of her gender. She rose up the ranks herself, commanded a destroyer, two carrier strike groups, and also the Sixth Fleet that covers Europe and Asia. So, Again, this was expected as well. The sense was that her time was coming because, again, they saw her as a diversity hire, as woke.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
But again, Scott, these admirals and generals, they follow policy. They don't come up with these diversity programs. They're following policy set by civilians. And now they're paying the price.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
That's right. We'll see that next week. Roughly 5,400, we're told, throughout the Pentagon and also the defense agencies. And that's the first tranche, we're told, of up to 55,000 civilian probationary workers who will be let go. And the savings from these firings and other cuts to programs will be used to build more submarines, drones, and also missile defense.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
You're welcome, Scott.
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Pentagon Upheaval, Hamas Releases More Hostages, NY State Prisons
Good to be with you, Scott. What happened? Well, you know, it is stunning, but it actually was expected. Scott, there's been talk for weeks that General Brown would be fired. And a lot of this comes down to a sense the general was chosen for the post because of the color of his skin, not his ability. Now, again, he's a second African-American after Colin Powell to hold a top military job.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the FBI Justice Department launched what became the largest single investigation in their histories. More than 1,500 cases, hundreds of those for violent assaults on police officers. And the most serious cases were for seditious conspiracy against leaders of extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Most defendants pleaded guilty.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
The people that went to trial were virtually all convicted by juries or in some cases by judges. And as these prosecutions have gone on, the facts that emerged have only been more alarming. We've seen more videos of violence. We learned more people had weapons like guns, bats, tasers, pepper spray.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
But as Trump ran for president again, he embraced this idea that the violence on January 6th was overblown. He claimed there were no guns, which is not true. And he claimed to supporters that most got a little out of hand, that they've been unjustly prosecuted in his view. And that's a narrative, though, I should say, that judges that actually heard these cases saw the evidence and
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
including judges he appointed, they rejected those claims again and again. Okay, now that he won the election, what do we know about Trump's plan for pardons? Well, during the campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to issue pardons on day one, but he's been vague about exactly whom he would pardon. At times, he said it would be on a case-by-case basis.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
He did say he would be open to pardoning people convicted of assaulting police. The Trump transition team, I asked them about this. They didn't give me any details. They said they would pardon people who were, quote, denied due process. But as I mentioned, most people pleaded guilty. Others decided to try their cases in front of a jury and most lost.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
What have they been saying? Well, I spoke to, for example, Aquilino Ganel. He was a sergeant in the Capitol Police on that day. He witnessed some of the worst violence. His injuries actually forced him to retire. And here is what he told me when I asked how he was feeling about the election.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
What did I risk my life for, he said. And I also talked with the family of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. He was assaulted with pepper spray on January 6th. He died of a stroke the following day. His mom, Gladys, said she's been crying, sometimes just out of the blue.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
The Sicknick family says they've been devastated to learn that there would be the possibility of pardons for the people who are involved with violence on January 6th, including potentially the man who assaulted Gladys Sicknick's son, Brian, who was sentenced to six years in prison. It is unclear if he'll get a pardon and also get out of prison. That's NPR's Tom Dreisbach. Tom, thank you very much.
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Ex-U.S. Capitol Police Officer Remembers Jan. 6, CNN Defamation Trial, Golden Globes
Thanks.