US President-elect Donald Trump
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A leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted last year of seditious conspiracy for his role in the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, on Wednesday asked President-elect Donald Trump for a pardon.
The Proud Boys leader, Joseph Biggs, who is serving a 17-year prison term, was the first of dozens of Proud Boys members found guilty in connection with Jan 6 to formally request clemency for the part he played in the Capitol attack. Other high-ranking members of the extremist organization, including its former chair, Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in his Jan 6 case, have also signaled they intend to ask Trump for pardons.
Biggs' lawyer, Norm Pattis, sent a letter to Trump on Wednesday requesting clemency for his client that opened by praising Trump for his "reelection to the presidency." Pattis quickly pivoted to asking the president-elect for "a complete pardon" for Biggs, suggesting that exonerating Biggs would serve "the broader public interest" in much the same way that the clemency granted to thousands of Confederate supporters helped to heal the nation in the years that followed the Civil War.
"These are divisive times," Pattis wrote. And he brought up the 2020 election, which many of Trump's supporters were challenging on the day of the attack on the Capitol. "Suspicions and bitterness about the election lingers to this day," he added.
"A pardon of Biggs," Pattis went on, "will help close that wound and inspire confidence in the future."
While Trump repeatedly promised during his recent campaign to pardon the more than 1,500 people charged so far in connection with the Capitol attack, his transition team has not yet put in place a formal policy about how to handle clemency requests like Biggs'.
Many of the rioters, their families and some outside activists who have supported their cause have been pushing Trump and his allies to create a formal protocol that would offer a broad version of amnesty to the defendants.
Those who support such a move have privately expressed concern about hundreds of Jan 6 rioters deluging the president-elect's administration with pardon requests. They would rather see a systemic approach to the issue of pardons worked out in advance of Trump taking office.