Vice President-elect JD Vance has attracted the wrath of MAGA world by throwing Trump’s promises of blanket pardons for insurrectionists into question.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA
JD Vance is learning what it’s like to be a target of Trump supporters.
Chaos in MAGA world ensued after the Vice President-elect told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream that not all insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 will receive pardons from Donald Trump.
“It’s very simple,” Vance claimed on the show. “If you protested peacefully on January the sixth, and you’ve had [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned, and there’s a little bit of a gray area there, but we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law. And there are a lot of people, we think, in the wake of January the sixth, who were prosecuted unfairly, and we need to rectify that.”
WATCH: @JDVance lays out President-elect Trump’s pardon process for January 6th participants. Tune in tomorrow for the rest of Shannon’s exclusive interview with Vice President-elect JD Vance. pic.twitter.com/RvqXrL6rO3
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) January 11, 2025
Lest you forget: As my colleague Mark Follman has chronicled, January 6, 2021, was indeed a heavily armed insurrection that saw 140 police officers injured and the deaths of four participants and five police officers who had been at the Capitol. More than 1,200 people have been charged for their actions that day, according to the Department of Justice. That includes more than 120 people charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer and 11 charged with assaulting a member of the media or destroying their equipment, the DOJ says.
Trump has made repeated promises to free the more than 460 participants who have been sentenced to periods of incarceration on his first day in office, calling them “hostages” and “political prisoners.” As recently as this past week, at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, he promised to issue “major pardons” when asked whether he would pardon those charged with violent offenses.
Vance’s recent comments, though, throws these pledges into question. So it comes as no surprise that after his comments aired on Fox News Sunday, some insurrectionists promptly melted down.
An X account purporting to represent Jake Lang, who’s incarcerated in DC while awaiting trial on charges that he beat police officers at the Capitol, posted a lengthy message addressed to Vance, writing in part: “The J6 Hostages families have been CRUSHED by the mixed messaging coming from the White House on the J6 Pardon Process recently. WE ARE UTTERLY CONFUSED!!”
“We have been waiting 4 years for this moment, & now it seems like your Administration is going to possibly leave some of our brothers behind; to rot away in the gulag for the next 10 to 20 years,” the post continues, before falsely alleging that that “ALL” insurrectionists “were set up and trapped by the FBI” and falsely claiming that all protested peacefully. “Mr. Vice President @JDVance, there is only one solution: BRING ALL OUR J6 POWs HOME!! NO MAN LEFT BEHIND – DAY ONE FULL PARDONS & CLEARING OF THE PRISONS!!”
In another post on X, someone identifying themselves as “January 6th survivor” Philip Anderson—the same name as someone facing felony and misdemeanor charges for his actions that day—alleged Vance’s comments were hypocritical, writing: “Telling your own supporters that the election was stolen and then not giving them a pardon or commutation after you sent them into what you call a “fedsurrection” and “trap” is a betrayal. All of the J6 defendants must be saved. JD Vance is wrong and I hope Trump will save his own supporters.”
The criticisms apparently got to Vance so much that he took to X in supplication. After a pair of conservative commentators known as the Hodge Twins told their 3.2 million followers that the VP-elect “Better rethink what you just said,” Vance reminded followers that he “donated to the J6 political prisoner fund and got ROASTED for it during my Senate race,” adding, “I’ve been defending these guys for years.” He also reiterated a disproven conspiracy theory that there were “federal informants in the crowd,” writing, “Do they get a pardon? I don’t think so.”
“The president saying he’ll look at each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback,” Vance wrote. “I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial.”
Trump does not yet appear to have publicly commented on the infighting, and his spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday afternoon. But there’s a lot about all this that feels microcosmic of our broader politics, including Vance’s desperation to receive the MAGA seal of approval and Trump (possibly) turning his back on his most ardent supporters. If Vance’s comments are accurate, and Trump does leave some insurrectionists in prison, expect more chaos to come on the right.
