Trump’s pardons will embolden Proud Boys, other far-right groups, say experts

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A protester yells inside the Senate Chamber on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
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A Proud Boy member smokes a cigar on January 21, 2025 outside the DC Central Detention Facility in Washington, DC. On January 20th, Donald Trump pardoned around 1,500 criminal defendants who were charged in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (AFP)
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Updated 22 January 2025
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Trump’s pardons will embolden Proud Boys, other far-right groups, say experts

  • Gavin McInnes, the British-born founder of the Proud Boys, said in an interview that he and his friends were celebrating late on Monday by “pounding bourbons and laughing our heads off”
  • “Our politics has always been violent,” Pattis said, pointing to events ranging from the US Civil War to the protests in the 1960s

WASHINGTON: A day after US President Donald Trump’s sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, America’s far-right celebrated. Some called for the death of judges who oversaw the trials. Others partied and expressed relief. Some even wept with joy.
Several experts who study extremism said the extraordinary reversal for rioters who committed both violent and nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy, will embolden the Proud Boys and other extremist groups such as white supremacists who have openly called for political violence.

In a few pen strokes, Trump reversed the largest US Justice Department investigation and prosecution in history, as he attempted to rewrite what happened during the violent riot on Jan. 6, 2021. As he took office for a second term on Monday, Trump continued to claim, falsely, that the 2020 election was rigged and that he was the rightful winner. He has described the riots as a peaceful “day of love” rather than a melee aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 US presidential election.




William Sarsfield, who was released from serving time for his charges related to January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, wears his prison shoes, after U.S. President Donald Trump made a sweeping pardon of nearly everyone charged in the January 6, 2021 attack, in Washington, U.S. January 21, 2025. (REUTERS)

“We’re not going to put up with that crap anymore,” Trump said at a post-inauguration rally on Monday, describing the Jan. 6 offenders as “hostages.”
For the convicted Jan. 6 defendants, and for the Trump faithful, the pardons were vindication for unjust persecutions by the president’s political enemies.
Gavin McInnes, the British-born founder of the Proud Boys, said in an interview that he and his friends were celebrating late on Monday by “pounding bourbons and laughing our heads off.”
Before the 2020 election, Trump told the Proud Boys – a violent all-male extremist group – to “stand back and stand by.” Three months later, federal prosecutors say, the group’s leaders plotted the Jan. 6 attack.
“This is a victory for us,” said McInnes, now a right-wing podcaster. If Trump hadn’t given all the Proud Boys clemency, the president would have been “dead to me, and Proud Boys and MAGA and everyone,” he said. “But luckily that didn’t happen.”
In a video posted online shortly after the pardons, convicted rioter Christopher Kuehne, a Marine veteran from Kansas who traveled to Washington with the Proud Boys in January 2021, sobbed: “I am finally free. I don’t even have the words to thank President Trump for what he has done for us.” He was sentenced in February to 75 days in prison and 24 months of supervised release for obstructing law enforcement.
Another Proud Boy told Reuters the pardons would help recruit more members. “A lot of people stayed away from us after there were arrests,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Now they are going to feel like they are bulletproof.”
The riot began after Trump rallied thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress certified Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Inspired by Trump’s baseless rigged-election claims, they swarmed the Capitol, setting off pitched battles with police. Some bludgeoned officers with makeshift weapons that included metal pipes, wooden poles and baseball bats. Prosecutors said the rioters carried firearms, tasers, swords, hatchets and knives.
Four people died on the day of the attack, including a woman protester shot by police. One Capitol Police officer who fought the rioters died the next day. Another 140 officers were injured. Four officers who responded to the riot later committed suicide.
Norm Pattis, a defense attorney who represents three Proud Boys and the leader of the Oath Keepers, a militia, dismissed the notion that the sweeping clemency would somehow lead to an increase in political violence.
“Our politics has always been violent,” Pattis said, pointing to events ranging from the US Civil War to the protests in the 1960s. “And so a few-hours riot at the Capitol is going to warrant years, decades behind bars? For some people, it’s disproportionate, and in my view just repulsive.”

“YOU NEED ACCOUNTABILITY”
Two police officers who were beaten while trying to hold off the crowd said the pardons were a chilling sign that loyalty to Trump is now more important than the rule of law.
“It’s outrageous,” former DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone told Reuters. Fanone suffered a heart attack and a brain injury after he was beaten, sprayed with chemical irritants and shocked with a stun gun during the Jan. 6 violence. Fanone, 44, who spent 20 years as a police officer, said the pardons likely will inspire other supporters to violence, “because they believe Donald Trump will grant them a pardon. And why wouldn’t they believe that?”
Aquilino Gonell, a former US Capitol Police sergeant who was injured defending the Capitol, said Trump’s pardons had nothing to do with righting an injustice. Trump and his Republican allies “have lost their claim to having moral high ground when defending our system of governance, the constitution, and supporting the police,” he said.
Among the pardoned were more than 300 who pleaded guilty to either assaulting or obstructing law enforcement, including 69 who admitted to assaulting police with a dangerous or deadly weapon. Trump’s order commuted the sentences of 14 convicted of serious crimes, including Stewart Rhodes, former leader of the Oath Keepers. Trump also issued pardons for others, including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy.
Nearly 300 rioters had links to 46 far-right groups or movements, according to a study from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a University of Maryland-based network of scholars that tracks and analyzes terrorist incidents.
Heather Shaner, a Washington lawyer who served as a court-appointed defense attorney for more than 40 of the defendants, called the pardons an attempt to whitewash history. “You need accountability,” she said in an interview. “Only by acknowledging the truth and providing accountability can you move forward.”
Some political extremism experts said the pardons would incentivize pro-Trump vigilantes to commit violence under the belief they’ll receive legal immunity if they act in the interests of Trump. “They are going to feel they can do whatever they want,” Julie Farnam, who was the assistant director of intelligence for the US Capitol Police during the Jan. 6 riots, said of far-right groups. “
They’ll feel like they can because there is no leadership in the United States that tries to stop it,” said Farnam, who now runs a private investigative agency.
Couy Griffin, who was stripped of his seat as a New Mexico county commissioner after he was convicted of trespassing on Capitol grounds, said he instructed his attorney to decline Trump’s pardon, as he appeals his conviction in federal court. In an interview, Griffin said he believes Trump’s enemies distorted the truth about the Capitol riots.
“Was there some violence against police officers? Yes, there was also a lot of violence of police officers against the crowd,” he said, echoing a frequent complaint of Trump supporters.

DEATH THREATS TO JURISTS, POLITICIANS
Many Trump supporters praised the pardons in right-wing online forums. Some threatened those who supported the prosecutions.
On the pro-Trump website Patriots.Win, at least two dozen people expressed hopes for executions of Democrats, judges or law enforcement linked to the Jan. 6 cases. They called for jurists or police to be hanged, pummeled to death, ground up in wood chippers or thrown from helicopters.
“Gather the entire federal judiciary into a stadium. Then have them listen and watch while the judges are beaten to death,” one wrote. “Cut their heads off and put them on pikes outside” the Justice Department.
Others called for killing Trump’s political critics after former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an influential Democrat, called the pardons “an outrageous insult.” “If someone successfully whacked Pelosi, I would consider them a hero,” one Patriots.Win commenter wrote. Another wished for Liz Cheney, the Republican who defied Trump by spearheading the congressional investigation of the violence, to “hang.”
One of the most famous rioters, Jake Angeli-Chansley, who became known as the “QAnon Shaman” for wearing a horned hat in the Capitol, took to the social media platform X to celebrate after the pardons. Sentenced to 41 months in prison in 2021, he was released from federal custody in 2023.
“NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHAFU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!”

 


Two astronauts stranded on space station to touch down early

Updated 12 sec ago
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Two astronauts stranded on space station to touch down early

  • Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to spend eight days on the International Space Station
  • But have been there for more than eight months after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft suffered propulsion problems
WASHINGTON: Two American astronauts who have been trapped on the International Space Station since June could return to Earth earlier in March than expected, NASA said Tuesday.
Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to spend eight days on the International Space Station (ISS), but have been there for more than eight months after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft suffered propulsion problems.
The US space agency decided the Starliner would return home without its crew after carrying out weeks of intensive testing and announced in August that it was tasking Elon Musk’s SpaceX with bringing the crew home.
Musk, one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, committed to bringing them back to Earth “as soon as possible” at the end of January, with Republicans blaming Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden for the delay.
A SpaceX mission called Crew-9 saw two astronauts arrive at the ISS in September aboard a Dragon spacecraft, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.
But their return was postponed when NASA announced that Crew-10 who was due to relieve them would not be blasting off until the end of March at the earliest.
The mission is now scheduled to launch on March 12 “pending mission readiness,” NASA announced Tuesday, explaining that the change was agreed with SpaceX after adjustments were made to the original plan.
Instead of using a brand new Dragon spacecraft that requires extra processing time, the Crew-10 mission will now use a previously flown one called Endurance.
The astronauts will return to Earth following a handover period of several days, the agency added.
In January, Wilmore and Williams said their spirits were still high, adding that they had plenty of food and were enjoying their time on the space station.
While their protracted stay is notable, it has not yet surpassed Frank Rubio’s record-breaking 371 days aboard the ISS, which he completed in 2023 after the Russian spacecraft designated for his return developed a coolant leak.

UK to refuse citizenship to undocumented migrants

Updated 12 February 2025
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UK to refuse citizenship to undocumented migrants

  • Under new guidance migrants arriving by sea, or hidden in the back of vehicles will normally be refused citizenship
  • Some 36,816 people were detected in the Channel between England and France in 2024

LONDON: The British government on Wednesday said it was toughening immigration rules to make it almost impossible for undocumented migrants who arrive on small boats to later receive citizenship.
Under new guidance migrants arriving by sea, or hidden in the back of vehicles will normally be refused citizenship.
“This guidance further strengthens measures to make it clear that anyone who enters the UK illegally, including small boat arrivals, faces having a British citizenship application refused,” a Home Office spokesperson said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is under pressure to reduce migration after Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party won roughly four million votes during the last general election — an unprecedented haul for a far-right party.
But the change to the rules has been criticized by some Labour MPs.
“If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them a route to become a British citizen,” wrote lawmaker Stella Creasy on X, adding that the policy would leave them “forever second class.”
Free Movement, an immigration law blog, said the changes had the potential to “block a large number of refugees from naturalizing as British citizens, effective immediately.”
It called the updated guidance “incredibly spiteful and damaging to integration.”
The announcement comes after MPs this week debated the government’s new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, designed to give law enforcement officials “counter-terror style powers” to break up gangs bringing irregular migrants across the Channel.
Legal and undocumented immigration — both currently running at historically high levels — was a major political issue at the July 2024 poll that brought Starmer to power.
On taking office, he immediately scrapped his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deter undocumented migration to the UK by deporting new arrivals to Rwanda.
Instead he pledged to “smash the gangs” to bring the numbers down.
Some 36,816 people were detected in the Channel between England and France in 2024, a 25 percent increase from the 29,437 who arrived in 2023, provisional figures from the interior ministry showed.


Russia’s Medvedev calls Ukraine’s territory exchange proposals ‘nonsense’

Updated 12 February 2025
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Russia’s Medvedev calls Ukraine’s territory exchange proposals ‘nonsense’

  • Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012, said Russia had shown that it can achieve ‘peace through strength’

MOSCOW: Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful Security Council, on Wednesday dismissed as “nonsense” Kyiv’s proposal to trade pockets of Russian territory it holds in exchange for Moscow-controlled parts of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Guardian newspaper that he planned to offer Russia a straight territory exchange to help bring an end to the war.
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012, said Russia had shown that it can achieve “peace through strength,” including through drone and missile strikes which hit Kyiv on Wednesday.
Russia controls just under 20 percent of Ukraine, or more than 112,000 square kilometers, while Ukraine controls around 450 square kilometers of Russia’s western Kursk region, according to open source maps of the battlefield.


Leaders of Indonesia and Turkiye hold talks on defense and economic ties

Updated 12 February 2025
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Leaders of Indonesia and Turkiye hold talks on defense and economic ties

BOGOR, Indonesia: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday for talks aimed at strengthening economic and defense ties between the two Muslim-majority nations.
The two countries are holding their first High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council summit after agreeing to create the forum at a meeting in Bali in 2022.
Erdogan’s state visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, was his second stop in a four-day visit that also includes Malaysia and Pakistan.
“This meeting is the highest regular bilateral forum between the two countries where all matters of common interest will be discussed, including strategic issues and priorities,” said Indonesian foreign ministry spokesperson Rolliansyah Soemirat ahead of the visit.
A Turkish statement said the discussions will be focused on current regional and global issues, particularly the war in Gaza.
On Monday, the Turkish leader met Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, and reiterated his opposition to a US proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and said Israel should pay for the territory’s reconstruction.
“We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan and his wife, First Lady Emine Erdogan, arrived in Jakarta late Tuesday and was welcomed by Subianto at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in a light rain. Erdogan rode with Subianto in a motorcade to his hotel.
Indonesia and Turkiye have built an increasingly close relationship in recent years, and the two leaders previously met in Ankara last July when Subianto was still president-elect and defense minister. Subianto pledged to “elevate defense cooperation and other strategic fields for mutual benefit.”
The two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement in 2010, under which Indonesia’s state-run arms producer Pindad and Turkiye’s FNSS jointly developed a new model of medium tank. In 2023, the two countries inked a plan of action for joint military exercises and defense industry cooperation.
In addition to Indonesia, Turkiye has HLSCC cooperation forums with 21 other countries, including Pakistan.
Turkiye and Indonesia plan to sign agreements on trade, investment, education and technology during Erdogan’s visit.
Erdogan will head on to Pakistan on Wednesday, where he and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will address the Pakistan-Turkiye Business and Investment Forum and attend another HSLCC meeting.


Musk aide given payment system access by mistake

Updated 12 February 2025
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Musk aide given payment system access by mistake

WASHINGTON : An Elon Musk aide was mistakenly given clearance to make changes to the US Treasury Department’s highly sensitive payments system containing millions of Americans’ personal information, a department official said Tuesday.
The admission came in a sworn statement to a federal judge amid heated criticism that the 25-year-old employee of billionaire Musk had editing rights to a system that handles trillions of dollars in government payments.
The employee, Marko Elez — who had no federal government status — resigned Friday after being linked to a racist social media account, only for Musk to announce that he was being reinstated.
President Donald Trump has tasked Musk with taking an axe to government spending as the leader of a new agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The sworn statement, seen by AFP, says that Elez was supposed to gain read-only access to the system, under the supervision of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the Treasury Department section that manages payments and collections.
“On the morning of February 6, it was discovered that Mr. Elez’s database access to SPS on February 5 had mistakenly been configured with read/write permissions instead of read-only,” said the statement from Joseph Gioeli, an official from the payments section.
SPS stands for Secure Payment System.
An initial investigation showed all of Elez’s interactions with the SPS system occurred within a supervised session and that “no unauthorized actions had taken place,” the official added.
Elez gained access through a Treasury Department laptop computer, triggering an uproar among critics of the Trump administration and worries about the safety of Americans’ personal data.
DOGE has no statutory standing in the federal government — which would require authorization from Congress — and neither Musk nor his aides are civil servants or federal employees.
Elez was one of two DOGE workers who gained access to the sensitive Treasury payments system.
A confidential internal assessment reported by US media warned the Treasury Department that this access represented an “unprecedented insider threat risk.”
Before he resigned, a court order forced Elez back to read-only permission for the payments system as Democratic lawmakers and citizen advocacy groups warned about the dangers to national security and the economy because of the data he could access.
Another member of the DOGE team, Thomas Krause, also submitted a sworn statement to the same judge on Tuesday, stating that he was employed by the Treasury on January 23 as an unpaid “Senior Adviser for Technology and Modernization.”
He was later delegated the duties of “Fiscal Assistant Secretary,” but said “I have not yet assumed the duties.”
Krause is listed in the Treasury Department’s organizational chart under this title.
“Although I coordinate with officials at USDS/DOGE, provide them with regular updates on the team’s progress, and receive high-level policy direction from them, I am not an employee of USDS/DOGE,” he said in his statement, adding that the department’s team within the Treasury consisted of himself and Elez.