Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
President Donald Trump claims to be cleaning up crime in Washington, after he sent the National Guard to police D,C.
However, Trump should be more concerned with the crime spree being carried out by some of the 1,500 Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists he pardoned, a number of whom have been re-arrested since Trump gave them clemency in one of the first actions he took when retaking office in January, Emily Singer noted at Daily Kos (9/8).
Robert Keith Packer, the Jan. 6 insurrectionist who infamously wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt, is the latest Trump pardon recipient to be arrested again since receiving Trump’s pardon.
Packer was taken into custody in Virginia on Sept. 4 after his dogs allegedly attacked four people, sending them to the hospital. One of the victims of the dog attack remains hospitalized and faces the possibility of losing her arm, according to a local media outlet in Newport News, Va, where the attack occurred.
According to a report from ABC News, Packer was charged with “one felony count of animal attack resulting from owner’s disregard for human life.” He was also charged with two misdemeanors of “attacking while at large and no city license.”
Packer had served 75 days in federal prison for his role in the Capitol insurrection, in which hordes of Trump supporters violently broke their way into the Capitol to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. Packer was to be arraigned on Sept. 12 for the alleged dog attack.
So far, at least six pardoned insurrectionists have been arrested for new crimes, including Packer. They include: Zachary J. Alam, who was arrested in May on burglary charges in Virginia; Andrew Taake, who in February was arrested on child sex crimes charges; Daniel Ball arrested on pending federal gun charges; and Matthew Huttle was shot and killed by police during a traffic stop. Another pardoned insurrectionist, Edward Kelley, was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted on charges of plotting to assassinate law enforcement officers who were involved in the probe of his role in the insurrection.
What’s more, a former FBI agent who urged rioters to kill law enforcement officers defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, now works in Trump’s Department of Justice.
Ultimately, Trump isn’t cleaning up crime, as he claims. He instead unleashed it by pardoning unrepentant rioters, going as far as mulling whether to give them restitution even though they sought to overthrow the government. One of the rioters, Ashli Babbitt, a U.S. Air Force veteran, died after she was shot by a Capitol police officer as she tried to break into the House chamber. Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit and Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice in May agreed to a payment of $4.975 million to the family and the Air Force in August offered a military funeral for Babbit.
