Ben Shapiro on January 6 pardons: “I think that if you beat up a cop, then you should go to jail. With that said, this was a promise that Donald Trump made.”
Shapiro: “I'm not gonna agree with all those pardons. I'm gonna agree with a lot of those pardons.”
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From the January 21, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): Well, number one on his list was a very controversial move, but you knew it was coming, which was a pardon for nearly all of the 1,500 January 6th protesters slash rioters. Now many of those people were unjustifiably convicted, held in prison, under indictment. I have personal friends, people we work with, who were at the January 6th protest, who trespassed in the capital, and then were investigated and hit years later by the DOJ for all of this. One of them gave me big hug last night in celebration at having been pardoned. He's on pardon list from President Trump.
Now listen, I think that if you beat up a cop, then you should go to jail. With that said, this was a promise that Donald Trump made. He was obviously going to do it. Do I think it is good that people who beat up cops are going free? I do not. Do I think that all the other — and there are many other people. We're talking hundreds, if not over a thousand, other people were in jail for reasons that were unjustifiable. So I think that those people should have been in jail? No. Which is, of course, what JD Vance said last week.
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Now, by the way, prosecutors called this the largest investigation in US history. That's insane. I'm sorry. That's crazy. January 6th, I think, was awful. I think it was bad for the country. I also think that to expend the resources to make that the largest investigation in American history after a summer where half of America burned during BLM summer was insanity — is insanity. I'm not gonna agree with all those pardons. I'm gonna agree with a lot of those pardons.
And Joe Biden literally pardoned, literally commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 people on death row two weeks ago. So, no, I'm not gonna lose a massive sleep over turnabout being fair play on this one. I'm not gonna lose massive sleep, although I do not think that it is a wonderful thing if people beat up cops and then get to go free.