Trump's mob is back on the job
But as they seek revenge, they'll have to make do without MAGA Granny
By Sam Bellamy
Donald Trump, it appears, gave his customary level of thought to deciding which of the Jan. 6th rioters he would release from incarceration and absolve of their court convictions.
“F--k it: Release them all,” Trump said as his team wrestled over just who to give a get-out-of-jail card to, an advisor familiar with the discussions told Axios.
For what it’s worth, a 71-year-old convicted rioter known as MAGA Granny gave it considerably more thought and reached a different conclusion. She is rejecting her pardon by Trump.
“Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation,” Pamela Hemphill of Boise, Idaho, told BBC.
Hemphill, who said she was recovering from surgery for breast cancer at the time of the riot, joined thousands of other Trump supporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.
On Trump’s orders to the mob, she followed violent, cop-beating rioters into the U.S. Capitol and stood inside the Rotunda – where, in a moment of major cognitive dissonance, Trump was sworn back into office this week – and urged others to “come on in, come on in, have fun … This is your house!”
During the melee, video shows Hemphill asking a member of the same police force under violent attack to assist her because she had “40 stitches.” An officer, in a show of professionalism unfamiliar to Trump and his aides, escorted her to safety so that she wouldn’t be jostled anymore.
Hemphill was later sentenced to 60 days in prison with 36 months of probation and $500 in restitution for her role in the riot. In prison, the retired substance abuse counselor concluded that she had fallen into “a Trump cult” and realized she’d made a series of very bad decisions.
In 2023, a Truth Social user posted a message saying that Hemphill would spend more time in prison than Hunter Biden, to which Trump replied, “horrible.” She turned to Twitter and posted “@realdonaldtrump don’t be using me for anything, I’m not a victim of Jan6, I pleaded guilty because I was guilty! #StopTheSpin.”
Following that and subsequent media interviews, Hemphill said she started to receive death threats.
Still, she is saying no thanks to the man for whom she had eagerly committed crimes. Doing otherwise, she told BBC, would only serve Trump and his team by contributing to “their gaslighting and false narrative.”
Republican members of the House and Senate, like their Democratic counterparts, should be concerned about that gaslighting and false narrative, too. After all, every one of their lives were at risk on Jan. 6; it would be foolhardy for them to assume that rioters were either bright enough or interested enough to separate Republicans from Democrats if they’d reached them that day.
All of them, of course, have police officers to thank for surviving what Trump has since called “a day of love.” (Because, apparently, nothing says love like a hangman’s noose.)
Some Republicans, including Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have objected to at least some of Trump’s pardons and commutation of sentences for the rioters.
But we’ve all seen this movie many times before. Republican criticism of Trump has a very short shelf-life, whether it’s because Trump has kompromat on them, or they fear a primary opponent funded by Elon Musk, or they suddenly recall some esoteric reason involving Trump’s higher consciousness and otherworldly intellect.
Cowards, in other words.
Speaking of cowards, two of the more prominent Trump-endorsed rioters – Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia – are using their newfound freedom to start where they left off.
It’s clear that neither man, nor other rioters quoted across news media, thinks their story ends with Trump’s erasure of their crimes.
“Success,” Tarrio said in an interview by Alex Jones, “is going to be retribution.”
Jones, you’ll recall, is the trusted Republican advisor whose Infowars site shot to fame when, among other things, he taunted the grieving parents of children slain at Sandy Hook and declared it all a hoax. In days of yore, this would have been a disqualifying feature of one’s personality in polite society, but – to put it in MAGA vernacular – we ain’t interested in yore polite society.
Rhodes, meanwhile, is opining “that the prosecutors who suborned perjury – that’s a crime – need to be prosecuted for their crimes,” according to The New York Times.
Tarrio, over in Alex Jones’ alternative reality, is in agreement, saying “Now it’s our turn” and adding, “The people who did this, they need to feel the heat.”
So far, the talk is of criminal prosecution. But as the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., taught us, groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers like to improvise when serving up what their warped, atrophied minds view as justice.
And, speaking of which, Trump seems open to Tarrio and Rhodes becoming trusted Republican advisors alongside Alex Jones.
When asked at a news conference this week if the two men and their groups will now become a greater part of the nation’s political conversation, Trump replied, “Well, we have to see. They’ve been given a pardon. I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”
We have to see. Yes, we have a president, again, who leaves the door open for and even welcomes “contributions” from people like this – people who beat the hell out of police officers, who urinated and defecated on the floors of the U.S. Capitol, who are part of anti-Semitic, white supremacist, misogynist organizations.
It’s all so, so very depressing.
But we can’t look the other way. That’s what Trump’s Republican enablers are doing.
(On the cover: Before heading to D.C. for the “Stop the Steal” rally, Pamela Hemphill posted a photo of herself on Facebook urging others to join her.)