John Bolton Calls Trump’s Aspiration to Pardon January 6 Rioters ‘Virtually Treasonous’

John Bolton, former national security advisor to former president Donald Trump, called his old boss’s stated intention to pardon those convicted of federal crimes for their actions during the January 6 Capitol riot “virtually treasonous” on CNN This Morning Tuesday.

After discussions about the release of Special Counsel John Durham’s report on Monday and the ongoing war in Ukraine, Kaitlan Collins asked Bolton about comments Trump made during a town hall event with Collins last Wednesday:

KAITLAN COLLINS: Can I ask you one other question before we go, which is another comment Trump made, speaking of the rule of law, last Wednesday night is he left the door open to pardoning people who were charged with assaulting cops on January 6, the Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy. What did you make of him saying he would consider pardoning most of them?

JOHN BOLTON: I think it’s virtually treasonous for the president to say he would pardon people who were trying to disrupt the work of Congress. It’s another example why he’s not fit to be president. If anybody wants to know what a Trump administration would look like when he’s pardoning the people who rioted on January the 6th, I think that’s all you need to know.

Last week, Trump told an audience member that he was “inclined to pardon many” of those convicted of crimes during the Capitol riot, though he said couldn’t “say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.”

The former president continued:

But, you know, when you look at Antifa, what they’ve done to Portland, and if you look at Antifa, look at what they’ve done to Minneapolis and so many other – so many other places, look at what they did to Seattle. And BLM – BLM, many people were killed.

These people – I’m not trying to justify anything, but you have two standards of justice in this country, and what they’ve done – and I love that question because what they’ve done to see many people is nothing – nothing. And then what they’ve done to these people, they’ve persecuted these people.

And yeah, my answer is I am most likely – if I get in, I will most likely – I would say it will be a large portion of them. You know, they did a very –

And it’ll be very early on. And they’re living in hell right now. They’re living in hell, and they’re policemen, and they’re firemen, and they’re soldiers, and they’re carpenters and electricians and they’re great people. Many of them are just great people.

Bolton served as Trump’s national security advisor for a little over a year, from April 2018 until September 2019. After leaving his post, Bolton sharply critiqued Trump in a 2020 book called The Room Where It Happened, which Trump characterized as “a compilation of lies and made up stories.”

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