GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham expresses concern about pardoning all January 6 rioters

 

Committee ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in December 2024. 

Mark Schiefelbein/AP/File

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham expressed concern about the idea of President-elect Donald Trump pardoning all January 6 rioters, particularly those who attacked police officers.

“I’m going to leave that to him — that’s his power to exercise — but the people who beat up police officers, I’d put them in a different category than others,” the South Carolina senator told reporters.

Newly elected Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, who served on the House January 6 Committee, said that pardoning the rioters would send a terrible message.

“I think it would send exactly the wrong message to essentially say that those who beat police officers and gouged them and bear-sprayed and tried to interfere with the transfer of power should somehow be validated by a pardon,” he added.