President Trump, as he promised, pardoned virtually all of the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office.
Even a handful of Republicans were publicly dismayed, if not privately appalled (see story here), although most of the GOP either applauded releasing these violent criminals back into society, or are cowed into silence.
Let’s look at one of these criminals. I’m not saying he’s representative of all Jan. 6 rioters; my point is, in issuing blanket pardons, Trump made no effort to separate rioters who pose an ongoing threat to society from non-violent ones (but still were there to overthrow our democracy).
Daniel Charles Ball (photo above), 39, of Homosassa, Florida, threw an “explosive device” into a group of 25 police officers, injuring several of them (see story here). He was arrested in May 2023, and slated to go on trial in January 2025, until Trump pardoned him.
Ball isn’t just a violent Jan. 6 rioter. His criminal record also includes “domestic violence battery by strangulation in June 2017,” battery on a police officer in October 2021, and felon in possession of a firearm in May 2023 (see story here). The pardon doesn’t cover his convictions for the first two, and he was re-arrested on the firearms charge on January 22, 2025, a day after Trump excused his Capitol riot actions.
The Capitol riot charges could have earned Ball years in prison, where he obviously belongs. Even if he serves time on the gun charge, it’ll be much less, and he’ll return to society much sooner than he would have otherwise.
Ball isn’t the only violent Capitol rioter Trump pardoned; read about five more here.
Before the 2024 election, Trump promised to pardon the Capitol rioters. Many Republicans called them “patriots.” Voters weren’t ignorant of this. That makes the voters who re-elected Trump and returned Republican radicals to Congress in 2024 complicit in putting violent criminals like Daniel Ball on America’s streets.