Tom Zawistowski, president of the We the People Convention, is continuing his call on President-elect Donald Trump to issue a pardon to political prisoners who were convicted on charges related to the January 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has vowed to pardon individuals accused or convicted of charges relating to January 6, telling Time magazine in December 2024 that pardons will begin “in the first hour” of him being inaugurated later this month on January 20.
On Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Zawistowski urged Americans to continue speaking out on why Trump must issue pardons for those accused and convicted.
“Not enough people understand – the [Democrats] have got the propaganda, they’ve got the talking points about ‘the insurrection,’ etc. But there was no insurrection. There was a political protest,” Zawistowski explained.
Zawistowski said the more people speak out in favor of the pardons will begin to change the narrative surrounding January 6.
“The government incited people to defend themselves…[Americans] have not heard the story of January 6 yet. What they’ve heard is misinformation propaganda. We’re going to investigate, and when the truth comes out, all of history will know that this was a coup and the ‘insurrection’ was a cover-up of the coup,” Zawistowski said.
Noting how upwards of 1,600 individuals have been charged in connection to the January 6 protest, with almost 1,100 having already been sentenced, Zawistowski described the treatment of those accused and convicted as simply “unjust.”
“If you did something that deserved a penalty, you’ve already served that penalty. Some of these people have been in prison for four years without a trial. They’ve never been in front of a judge. How was that equal justice? How was that swift justice? That’s torture,” Zawistowski said.
“The number of people in solitary confinement, people denied their medications, people beaten by guards. This is a stain on our country’s history. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, I think this was the worst thing the U.S. government has done since the internment of the Japanese Americans in World War II,” Zawistowski added.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Background Photo “January 6 Riot” by Tyler Merbler. CC BY 2.0.
