Trump rewrites history with January 6 pardons

In one of his first actions as the 47th President of the United States, Trump issued an executive order titled “Granting pardons and commutation of sentences for certain offences relating to events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021”. The preface read, “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.”

Trump’s decision came just hours after his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, issued his own set of pre-emptive pardons to members of the January 6 select committee of the House of the Representatives, including former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, that had investigated the January 6 mob attack and held Trump responsible. Biden said he was issuing them pardon not because they had done anything wrong but to protect them from politically motivated attacks.

In those pardons lies the story of January 6, America’s two radically different interpretation of what happened that day, and Trump’s success in ensuring that his narrative of what happened prevails, despite it being in stark contrast with visual evidence, multiple independent reports, journalistic reportage and court judgments.