(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Pam Bondi rejected that President Donald Trump’s pardons for hundreds of rioters who assaulted police during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol creates a double standard with the administration’s aggressive response to violence at immigration protests in Los Angeles.
“Well, this is very different,” Bondi said Wednesday in an on-camera gaggle with reporters at the White House. “These are people out there hurting people in California right now. This is ongoing.”
Trump’s and other officials’ attempts to stoke outrage over videos showing attacks on law enforcement in Los Angeles has been the subject of some mockery on social media — with Democrats and other critics of the administration posting comparisons to the assaults law enforcement were subject to on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob descended on the Capitol.
More than 140 officers suffered injuries during the Jan. 6 riot as they were beaten by objects ranging from baseball bats and hockey sticks to rocks and even an American flag.
Trump’s pardons for nearly all of the 1,600 people charged in connection with the assault on the Capitol extended to more than 450 charged with assaulting or impeding officers — 300 of whom still had not had their cases fully adjudicated.
The dismantling of the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 investigation further halted investigations of roughly 60 people suspected of assaulting police during the riot who had yet to be charged, according to statistics released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington prior to Trump taking office.
During Bondi’s confirmation hearing prior to Inauguration Day, she said she believed any pardons for Jan. 6 defendants should be evaluated on a “case-to-case basis” and suggested she would be opposed to pardons for people accused of assaulting law enforcement officers.
“Let me be very clear in speaking to you: I condemn any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country,” Bondi said at the time.
Bondi has not publicly commented on Trump’s pardons since then, though FBI Director Kash Patel did notably distance himself during his confirmation hearing from Trump’s pardons for violent Jan. 6 offenders.
“I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement,” Patel said. “And I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”
In her gaggle with reporters Wednesday, Bondi repeatedly dodged questions about the administration’s views on the legal standards that must exist in order to invoke the Insurrection Act.
She instead pointed to what she argued appears to be improved conditions on the ground that shouldn’t warrant such aggressive intervention by the administration.
“Right now in California, we’re at a good point,” Bondi said. “We’re not scared to go further. We’re not frightened to do something else if we need to.”
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