Despite the inconvenient fact that violent crime rates in Washington, D.C., have reached 30-year lows, Donald Trump decided to deploy National Guard troops to D.C. streets and place local police officers under federal control as part of a dramatic and unnecessary power grab.
As part of the rollout of his radical new policy, the president suggested he was standing with law enforcement.
“[Unnamed criminals] fought back against law enforcement last night and they’re not going to be fighting back long because I’ve instructed them and told them whatever happens, you know, they love to spit in the face of the police as the police are standing up there in uniform,” Trump said. “They’re standing and they’re screaming at them, an inch away from their face, and then they start spitting in their face. And I said, ‘You tell them, you spit and we hit,’ and they can hit real hard.”
There was, however, a rather obvious problem with Trump’s chest-thumping rhetoric: For all of his apparent concerns for officers, the president maintained very different standards when it came to Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom did far more than just spit on police officers during violent clashes at the Capitol, but who nevertheless received presidential pardons from the Republican just hours after his second inaugural.
Indeed, Trump’s Justice Department recently hired a Jan. 6 rioter who was literally filmed urging his fellow insurrectionists to “kill” police officers. After this news came to public light, Trump’s DOJ, instead of firing the guy, said about the man who advocated deadly violence against cops, “Jared Wise is a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team.”
At the same White House press conference on Monday, the president went on to say that those who “so much as touch” key national landmarks in D.C. will “go to jail for 10 years.”
Putting aside the simple fact that Trump can’t simply dictate criminal punishments on the fly, many were also quick to note that the Republican adopted very different standards after Jan. 6 rioters vandalized the U.S. Capitol and did millions of dollars in damage in the process — money the Trump administration doesn’t want the rioters to pay.
It’s striking how frequently this comes up. About a month ago during a briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared from her podium, “This administration wants anyone who has ever committed a crime to be held accountable.”
That certainly sounded nice, but it wasn’t long before observers took note of the inconvenient fact that Trump keeps pardoning criminals — including violent felons who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 — making sure they aren’t held accountable.
A month earlier, U.S. Customs and Border Protection used its social media platform to issue a statement that read, “Let this be clear: Anyone who assaults or impedes a federal law enforcement officer or agent in the performance of their duties will be arrested and swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Attack a cop, and life long consequences will follow!” FBI Director Kash Patel added in a statement of his own: “Hit a cop, you’re going to jail.”
Such sentiments obviously should’ve applied to Jan. 6, but as far as Team Trump was concerned, they didn’t.
The bottom line is simple: The Trump administration’s talking points are routinely rooted in the idea that Jan. 6 either didn’t happen or it’s been forgotten, which is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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