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As one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump pardoned over 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes for taking part in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
So, of course, a panel on CNN wasn't happy about this.
CNN's in-house conservative commentator Scott Jennings was also on the panel.
And he had a reminder for them.
“Here is what I think," Jennings began. "Were these people punished? Yes. Were they ruined financially? Yes. Did they spend time in jail? Yes. Have their lives been ruined? Absolutely."
Referring to panelist Van Jones, Jennings continued, “And one of you said earlier, Van or Ax, that you think this sends a terrible signal you can get away with things like this. As though we‘ve never had a moment in recent American history when people were not punished for rampaging around when it shouldn’t have been."
"It was in summer of 2020," he noted.
Jennings was talking about the George Floyd rioters and Black Lives Matter protesters.
Jones replied, “I see that a little bit different than you do. And those people were never even charged.”
Precisely.
In the George Floyd riots in May of 2020, at least 25 people were killed.
The property damage has been estimated to be as high as $2 billion.
And Jones is right: "Those people were never even charged."
Jones continued, going back and forth with Jennings, “I do see it differently in that I don’t like it when people tear up buildings at all. I’m not a part of some pro-riot, pro-crime lobby."
During the time when many of the J6 participants were being given harsh sentences, Fox Host (at the time) Tucker Carlson had access to over 41,000 hours of video footage from the Capitol that day.
Some of that footage showed law enforcement officers escorting protesters around the Capitol.
Jennings would add, “I do think it’s important to note that these people, whatever they did, whether it was just accidentally walking in or doing something much, much worse... most of them, if not all of them, did get punished, served some kind of time, and my assumption is virtually all of them had their lives effectively ruined."
Scott Jennings is right. The majority of those convicted of crimes for January 6 were not engaged in violence and yet were given sentences far longer than they should have been.
They were made examples of when a Democratic administration was in power.
That's not justice. That's playing with people's lives to make a point.
But in one fell swoop on Monday, Donald Trump set things right.
Thank you, Mr. President.