Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

The reprieves granted by President Donald J. Trump to the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the seditious attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, represent a grievous blow to democracy and justice. With a stroke of his pen, the newly sworn president has spit in the faces of the police officers who were stomped that day, beaten with bats and flagpoles, choked with bear spray. These pardons are a corruption of every American ideal. They’re a flag set afire.

And as the opening act of a presidency, they augur very dark times ahead.

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On the first day of his second term in office, President Trump gave clemency to the seditionists who supported him at the end of his last term, pardoning the vast majority, commuting........

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