President Donald Trump said there’s “talk” within his administration about paying compensation to the rioters who were prosecuted for storming the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results.
“A lot of the people that are in the government now talk about it because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people,” he said Tuesday during an interview with Newsmax. “They’re patriots as far as I’m concerned.”
On his first day in office, Trump pardoned about 1,500 people convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks and issued commutations—meaning their convictions stand but their lengthy prison sentences have been cut short—for the 14 people who organized and led the mob.
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The most violent rioters were found guilty of beating police officers defending the Capitol with flagpoles, stomping on their heads, and attacking them with pepper spray.
Their other crimes included throwing a police officer down a flight of stairs, throwing a bomb into a packed tunnel, and plotting to murder FBI agents investigating the attack.
In June 2021, a bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people had died in connection with the riot, including three police officers, The New York Times reported. A month later, two more police officers defending the Capitol died by suicide, bringing the total to nine deaths.
About 150 officers were injured in the attacks, and hundreds of workers were also traumatized by the mob, the Times reported.
Many of the rioters have shown no remorse for the violence that took place that day. Michael Sparks, the first rioter to enter the Capitol, said during his sentencing hearing that his only regret was that the insurrection hadn’t been successful, the BBC reported.
Trump made their release a central campaign promise, though he had previously stopped short of calling for financial compensation.
Some of the freed Jan. 6 rioters and their supporters, however, have long called for reparations, Politico reported. That includes Ed Martin, the lawyer Trump appointed to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C.
“These people are incredible people,” Trump told Newsmax on Wednesday.
He also pledged to “look into” the case of Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old conspiracy theorist with a history of violence who was shot and killed by Capitol police during the riot. Her family has sued the government for wrongful death, a charge the Department of Justice is fighting.
Calling himself a “big fan” of Babbitt—who has become a martyr for many MAGA supporters—Trump said he would look into whether the case should be settled.
His supporters who stormed the Capitol “went there peacefully and patriotically,” he added.
