Trump: I'll pardon Capitol rioters if I become president
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TEXAS • Former United States president Donald Trump said on Saturday if he were to run for president and win in 2024, he would pardon people charged with criminal offences in connection with the deadly Jan 6 assault by his supporters on the US Capitol.
Mr Trump, who has not said whether he will run for president again after his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, was speaking at a rally in Conroe, Texas.
"Another thing we'll do, and so many people have been asking me about it, if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan 6 fairly," Mr Trump said to applause.
"We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly."
Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 last year, the worst assault on Congress since the War of 1812.
Fuelled by Mr Trump's false claims that his November 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud, the attackers sought to stop Congress from certifying Mr Biden's victory.
One police officer who responded to the scene died the day after the attack, while four others who guarded the Capitol died later by suicide. About 140 officers were injured during the hours-long attack. Four rioters also died.
More than 700 people have been charged with joining in the assault, including 11 who have been charged with seditious conspiracy. Some have said they believed they were doing Mr Trump's bidding.
Mr Trump also took aim at the New York state attorney-general and the Manhattan district attorney, both of whom have been investigating his businesses for possible fraud, and at the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, who is setting up a special grand jury to investigate Mr Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Mr Trump urged his supporters to organise large protests in New York and Atlanta, as well as in Washington, if those investigations lead to action against him.
"If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or corrupt, we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had," he said.
REUTERS, NYTIMES
