DeSantis attacks ‘excessive sentences’ of January 6 defendants, suggests he will pardon them if elected

In a recent Newsmax appearance with Eric Bolling, Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis scrutinized the “stiff sentences” given to some involved in the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.

“We will look at all those cases,” DeSantis stated. “There’s some examples of people that should not have been prosecuted. They just walked into the Capitol. If they were [Black Lives Matter protesters], they would not have been prosecuted.”

While admitting some might have acted wrongly, even violently, DeSantis questioned the labeling of their actions as terrorism and the discrepancy in their sentences.

🚨 DeSantis on the Proud Boys sentences and on Enrique Tarrio's 22-year sentence -- calls them "excessive sentences" and promises to look at pardons and commutations for the January 6 defendants.pic.twitter.com/rwfXj7gBAN

— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) September 7, 2023

He stated, “Then there’s other examples of people that probably did commit misconduct, they may have been violent, but to say it’s an act of terrorism when it was basically a protest that devolved into a riot, to do excessive sentences — you can look at, okay maybe they were guilty, but 22 years if other people that did other things got six months?”

“I think we need a single standard of justice, and so we’ll use pardons and commutations as appropriate to ensure that everyone’s treated equally, and as we know, a lot of people with the BLM riots, they didn’t get prosecuted at all,” he concluded.