At least two people, who were convicted in connection with the US Capitol riots, have “rejected” the pardon issued by President Donald Trump. Jason Riddle and Pamela Hemphill believe their actions on January 6, 2021, were not pardonable and accepting Mr Trump’s clemency would contribute to “propaganda” that the attack “was a peaceful protest”.
Speaking to The Guardian on Thursday, 71-year-old Hemphill said she was taking responsibility for her role in attempting to prevent the certification of former President Joe Biden’s victory over Mr Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
“Accepting Trump’s pardon would contribute to propaganda that [the attack] was a peaceful protest,” she said. Hemphill had received a 60-day misdemeanour prison sentence and three years of probation after pleading guilty in 2022 to illicitly demonstrating, picketing or parading at the Capitol.
Later on Friday, US Navy veteran Riddle, who received a 90-day prison sentence and was fined $750 in April 2022 for pleading guilty to committing misdemeanours during the attack, also echoed Hemphill’s sentiments and said that rejecting Mr Trump’s pardon would boost his employment prospects moving forward.
“I’m thinking down the road [if] an employer looks in my background, they see misdemeanours… with a presidential pardon – I think that tends to draw more attention,” he told New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR).
Referring to the president’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, Mr Riddle added, “And I’m sure that’s fine in the Maga world with whoever supports Trump, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if [those at] the job I’m applying to … like Trump.”
According to court documents, on 6 January 2021, Mr Riddle entered the US Senate parliamentarian’s office, drank a bottle of wine, stole a book and inflicted damage at the Capitol.
Looking back, Mr Riddle said, “It’s almost like [Trump] was trying to say it didn’t happen. And it happened. I did those things, and they weren’t pardonable. I don’t want the pardon. And I … reject the pardon.”
Mr Riddle served in the US Navy from 2006 to 2010. He also worked as a corrections officer, restaurant server and mail carrier over the years. Calling himself a recovering alcoholic, Riddle told NHPR he was not in recovery at the time he partook in the Capitol attack.
Recalling the time when he stopped supporting the Republican leader, Mr Riddle said after he got out of prison, he saw Mr Trump asking his supporters to protest when he braced to be charged in a case that involved hush-money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
“I remember thinking, ‘What are you doing, Trump? Remember what happened at the [Capitol] riot? Someone might get hurt. Why would you ask people to protest,” he said.
The 2021 Capitol assault followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race. He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.
Mr Trump was charged with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But the case never made it to trial and was dropped following Mr Trump’s November election victory under the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
After he won back the Presidency by defeating Kamala Harris in November, he gave blanket pardons or commutations to 1,500 people charged or convicted in the attack on Congress carried out in his name.