A former Donald Trump fan involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol said he would reject a presidential pardon because it would be a “slap in the face to the rule of law.”
Pamela Hemphill was jailed for 60 days for her role in telling chief presenter Mark Austin that she was part of what he now calls a “MAGA cult”.
One of Trump’s first acts in his second term as president was to pardon some 1,500 people convicted in connection with the riot, but Hemphill doesn’t want to be part of that.
“It would be a slap in the face to the rule of law, to Capitol Police officers, and to our country,” she said.
“To be complicit in what they’re saying about what happened on January 6th…that was a riot and I don’t want to be complicit in their rewriting history. I was guilty. ”
She added that she didn’t realize at the time that she was part of a “cult” or that President Trump was a “dangerous narcissist” who had told “the big lie that the election was stolen.”
“But when you’re in the MAGA cult, they gaslight you so much and tell you not to listen to anyone but Trump,” she said.
“Later… I found out that this was all just propaganda and lies and that Trump is a really dangerous narcissist.”
He worried that groups such as the far-right Proud Boys could become more violent in the future, adding that peaceful protests “could be at risk.”
He also responded to reports that some of the pardonees would be invited to the White House, saying it would be a “nightmare” and calling Congress to tell “what really happened” on the day of the riot. He said he would like to be invited.
