Trump To Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters; Marco Rubio Confirmed As Secretary of State

by Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – Just hours after his inauguration, U.S. President Donald J. Trump promised “immediate pardons” to those convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

His comments came as Marco Rubio was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as secretary of state at a time of a raging war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East around Israel, and other security challenges.

If Trump invokes a broad pardon, it could wipe out the convictions or sentences of many of the nearly 1,600 people who were prosecuted. Trump said Monday evening that he would issue pardons later in the day.

Among other executive orders Trump signed to cheers at the arena was one withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations “to fight climate change.”

The United States joins Iran, Libya, and Yemen as the only four countries not party to the agreement.

Skeptics, including Trump and at least some scientists, have questioned the human impact on climate change, which they view as a natural phenomenon that has occurred over centuries. Other scientists disagree and support the Paris Agreement.

FEDERAL WORKERS

Besides pardoning supporters and rushing to leave the global climate accord, Trump ordered federal workers to return to full-time in-person work.

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, many state workers stayed home.

Some of the Trump administration’s first administrative actions occurred during Trump’s inaugural speech.

Federal officials shut down a government application for smartphones that allows migrants to schedule appointments to use ports of entry. Almost a million immigrants used this option while it was active.

Incoming officials also said he would end birthright citizenship.

However, it is unclear what an executive order would do because the Constitution guarantees citizenship for those born in the United States.

Yet Trump expressed pleasure about a last-minute wave of pre-emptive pardons issued by President Biden to protect some of Trump’s adversaries, including General Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime government scientist who has been questioned over his COVID measures and involvement in controversial virus development; and all the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

REPUBLICAN SETBACK

It came as a setback for Republicans who have accused Dr. Fauci of lying to the U.S. Congress by denying that his agency funded “gain of function” research—the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential real-world impact—at a lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the COVID-19 pandemic began.

For years, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) gave grants to a New York nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance and used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab to study coronaviruses commonly carried by bats.

Milley reportedly fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed by Trump for criticizing him. Representative Cheney had similar concerns about being prosecuted.

Yer two of those pardoned, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and former Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, thanked Biden.

They said they had been pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it.”

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