Donald Trump has floated a controversial plan that would pay government money directly to a group of people convicted in the past of federal crimes, some of which were violent.
Trump, in his first days in office in January, pardoned every one of the 1,500 or so people convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection, in which supporters of Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the electoral vote count that day. The insurrection led to Trump’s second impeachment and was widely, erroneously, believed to mark the end of his political career.
Among those pardoned were people convicted of seditious conspiracy, as well as various violent crimes against police officers. More than 100 police officers were injured in the attack, while $1.5 million in damage was done to the Capitol building itself.
Now, Trump has indicated that he supports the idea of a compensation fund for the January 6 convicts. The comments came in an interview Trump gave on Newsmax to Greg Kelly.
President Trump addresses the latest on the case of Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter who was shot and killed at the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, rips the police shooting, the overall treatment of now-pardoned defendants, and the actions of the former House J6 select committee. pic.twitter.com/kPXPyGVuJT
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) March 26, 2025
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Kelly raised the possibility of a compensation fund, due to lost income opportunities for the time they were in prison or otherwise in legal jeopardy.
“Well there’s talk about that, we have a lot of people talking about it, a lot of the people that are in government now talk about it, because a lot of people in government really like that group of people,” the president said in response.
“The judges, the system, the hatred, the vitriol, the prosecutors, the way they wanted to destroy these people,” Trump said of the January 6 participants, hundreds of which were fairly convicted of crimes in a court of law.
Trump says he’s looking at setting up some sort of government “compensation fund” for the January 6 criminals that he pardoned pic.twitter.com/3UUeRiNEKo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2025
It’s not clear how such a fund would work, and whether it would require an act of Congress. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), on X Wednesday, declared that he would like Congress to vote on such an action.
Many others pointed out that this is a particularly wild action for the government to take, at a time of massive budget cuts and public employees being fired.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
