DeSantis says he might pardon anyone from ‘grandma’ who rioted on Jan 6 ‘to Trump’ if he’s elected

Speaking on a radio show this Thursday, newly-announced presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said that he’d “aggressively” look into victims of “political targeting” if he’s elected president, even if his 2024 rival Donald Trump is among them.

“What I’m going to do is … on day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases [of] people who are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons,” he told the “Clay & Buck” radio show.

“If there are other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like [Black Lives Matter] protests and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice, and so we’re going to find ways where that did not happen. And then we will use the pardon power — and I will do that at the front end,” he said, speaking of people prosecuted for partaking in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Pardons would apply to “any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization” such as “a whole bunch of cases that don’t necessarily get headlines,” DeSantis said.

“And that could be from a grandma who got arrested and prosecuted to all the way up to, potentially, Trump himself,” the show’s co-host Clay Travis said. “Is that fair to say when you analyze what the charges might have been brought on a federal level?”

“I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big,” DeSantis replied.

As The New York Post points out, Trump faces an array of legal threats from cases that include hush money payments to inciting a riot.

Image via Shutterstock.com 

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.