Trump’s Department of Justice has deleted massive amounts of information and data about convictions and sentences of January 6ers from its website. Yes, this is the same party that when it comes to confederates statues says you “can’t erase history.” Yet they are trying their best to erase their disgusting history of January 6th. Yesterday Federal Judge Paul Friedman issued an order summarizing convictions and sentences in an effort to preserve the history. You can read the order HERE.
The list is an appendix to an order dismissing charges against Defendant Christopher Warnagiris on grounds Trump pardoned him. The judge was compelled to grant the motion but said some things along the way making clear his objection to this abuse of the pardon power.
Judge Friedman describes Warnagiris as “instrumental in the breach of the Capitol Building.” He forced doors open against police holding them shut, propped them open, and forced them open again when police temporarily succeeded in closing them. He physically assaulted police and was one of the cop beaters pardoned by Trump.
Judge Friedman quotes from Trump’s pardoning proclamation which justified the pardons as “to end a grave national injustice that has been perpetuated on the American people over the last four years and begin a process of national reconciliation.”
Judge Friedman flatly declares that Proclamation “factually incorrect” and states “there has been no grave national injustice.” The judge continues, “just because the Proclamation has been signed by the President does not transform up into down or down into up.” The judge makes clear that the government’s “abandonment of this case does not justify or erase [the defendant’s] criminal actions.”
Judge Friedman defends the trials of January 6 defendants as models of due process, where “Judges methodically applied the law to facts or instructed juries to do so.” Judge Friedman concludes that nothing in the dismissals required by Trump’s mass pardon “will undo the damage done by insurrectionists on January 6 2021. Nor will it change the truth of what happened on that day of infamy.” Judge Friedman also quoted Judge Chutkan’s powerful words reflected in the picture above.
This judge’s order will endure, notwithstanding Trump’s efforts to erase history and the stain on the Office of the Presidency that these pardons shall viewed as by history.
