The members of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee are responding to President Trump’s recent remarks in which he implied that their preemptive pardons are not valid.
The president called the pardons into question on Sunday, alleging that they were issued with “autopen” and that former President Biden had no knowledge they were being signed.
“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
In response to Trump, several members of the committee have pointed to his inability to nullify or revoke a presidential pardon. They also maintained that their work on the committee, which found that Trump incited the crowd who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, was entirely legal and ethical.
“The Jan. 6 Committee did its job,” former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) wrote Monday in a Substack post. “It stood up for democracy while Trump and his sycophants tried to burn it down. The people who cooperated did so in the name of truth, accountability, and the preservation of our republic. They were almost ALL REPUBLICANS, And now, because he can’t handle reality, Trump wants to puff out his chest and threaten the committee?”
“Fine. Do it. Or shut up,” Kinzinger added.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke with The Hill about Trump’s comments, saying it was only “political noise” and that those who served on the panel “stand by our work.”
“Despite their threats to Congresswoman Cheney and the chairman of our committee, Bennie Thompson, no one has committed any kind of infraction in the conduct of the Jan. 6 proceedings, nor in the preparation of our report, and no one has laid a glove on a single factual statement in our report,” Raskin told the outlet. “We are proud of our work documenting the insurrectionary violence, and they haven’t contradicted any of our findings.”
Others echoed similar sentiments in social media posts.
“The members of the Jan. 6 Committee are all proud of our work,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote on X. “Your threats will not intimidate us. Or silence us.”
Still, in his post, Trump hinted that he was going to launch a criminal investigation into the work the committee did.
“Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two-year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,” Trump wrote.
The chair of the panel, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), shared on X that the work he and his colleagues did was done under the law.
“Trump was responsible for Jan. 6. That’s why on day one, he pardoned those who beat police that day,” Thompson wrote on X. “We thoroughly & legally investigated what he did and have lived rent free in his mind since. He knows his guilt. I am not afraid of his rant that has no basis in reality.”
Presidential pardons are laid out in Article I Section II of the Constitution and were written broadly.
Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, shared with The Hill that as they are written, a pardon doesn’t even need to be in writing. He says it can be spoken and must still be upheld.
“Legally, the president’s comments are off base,” Raskin said. “The courts and the Office of Legal Counsel have both been clear that there doesn’t even need to be a writing for a pardon or commutation to be executed — it can even be done verbally.”
“You could announce pardons or commutations from the Rose Garden or the Oval Office, and that is effective because the Constitution just says that the president has power to issue pardons and reprieves,” Raskin continued. “It doesn’t say that it has to be written.”