If there’s a defining characteristic of President Trump’s second term, it’s the tendency to treat big, irreversible decisions like impulse buys at a Ralphs checkout counter.
You can see this dynamic everywhere, from the Iran war to the bulldozing of the East Wing of the White House. The pattern is familiar by now: Trump moves fast, breaks things and frames prudential caution as weakness. And then? Someone else has to clean up the rubble.
Which brings us to Jan. 6, which — believe it or not — is suddenly relevant again.
After the riot in 2021, the American public looked at the wreckage in the Capitol rotunda and collectively decided, “Well, at least he’s better than Biden.”
Trump (amazingly) returned to office four years later — and promptly issued pardons to the rioters who had rallied to his cause. Even worse, he did it in just the way you’d expect from Trump: indiscriminately.
There was no careful review of individual cases, no sober exercise of executive judgment, no attempt to separate the violent from the merely overenthusiastic tourists and “peaceful protesters.”
It was clemency by leaf blower.
And now, inevitably, we are discovering that pardoning an entire mob of insurrectionists may not have been wise.
The most recent case involves Ryan Nichols, a Jan. 6 rioter who was arrested and booked on May 10, after following a man and his family through a Texas church parking lot and allegedly placing his hand on the grip of a firearm during an argument.
According to the local sheriff, the victim was “holding a Bible at that time,” which sounds like the setup for a deeply sappy country-Western song, but it’s not.
Of course, Nichols is just the newest entry in what’s becoming America’s least inspiring alumni association. A 2025 study by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that “at least 33 January 6th insurrectionists pardoned by President Trump have been rearrested, charged or sentenced for other crimes since January 6, 2021.”
More examples — like Nichols — have popped up in the months since that report was issued.
Take Zachary Alam, who originally received eight years for his role in the riot (before being pardoned), and whose alleged actions included smashing the door panel where Ashli Babbitt was shot.
Alam was recently convicted of breaking into a home outside of Richmond, Va., and committing grand larceny.
Amazingly, Alam’s is one of the tamer examples I’ll cite.
Consider the case of Andrew Paul Johnson, who once described himself as an “American terrorist.” Johnson was recently sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children — and reportedly attempted to use anticipated Jan. 6 compensation money to bribe one of the victims into silence.
Talk about audacity.
Or take David Daniel, another pardoned participant, who admitted assaulting police during the Capitol riot and later reached a plea agreement involving allegations that he enticed a child under 12 into sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of making a video.
Daniel Tocci was recently sentenced after investigators found more than 100,000 child sexual abuse images and videos, along with other material so grotesque it’s best not to describe it here.
And who could forget that just this past February, Christopher P. Moynihan pleaded guilty to threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. During the Capitol riot, Moynihan had been filmed rummaging through senators’ desks muttering about finding something “against these f—ing scumbags.”
Sounds like a swell guy.
Lastly, there’s Bryan Betancur, a self-described white supremacist who was arrested in connection with an alleged assault aboard a Metro train in Washington and later accused of stalking a female journalist.
Look, I’m not naive. Take any large group of people, and you’re gonna get some weirdos.
But there seems to be a disproportionate number of pervs who were intensely committed to taking back their country for Donald Trump.
And sure, it would be easy to point out that Republicans have spent years branding themselves as the party of law and order, backing the blue, and sternly lecturing America about personal responsibility. Which makes pardoning people who assaulted police officers, shall we say, strange.
You could also point to MAGA’s contention that crimes committed by people in the U.S. without legal status are especially heinous, because they shouldn’t be here in the first place. By similar logic, some of these reoffenses by Jan. 6 criminals wouldn’t have been committed were it not for Trump’s pardon.
But the real story here isn’t hypocrisy. The real story is Trump’s governing instinct to act rash and worry about consequences later (or never). Unfortunately, there are real consequences affecting real American victims, stemming from a decision that was obviously reckless from the start.
In fact, the fallout began almost immediately. Just six days after receiving a pardon, Jan. 6 defendant Matthew Huttle was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop in which Huttle raised a loaded handgun.
That was merely the opening scene.
The truly unsettling part is this: Nobody knows how many more chapters are left in this story.
Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”
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