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Trump Denounced for Enabling 'Crime Spree' With Mass Pardon of Capitol Insurrectionists
The sentencing of a man for child pornography is but one of dozens of cases—including charges or convictions for child sex crimes, rape, and weapons offenses—involving pardoned January 6 attackers.
Mar 31, 2026
President Donald Trump was elected twice on promises of upholding "law and order," but his blanket pardon of January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrectionists—dozens of whom have since run afoul of the law—is drawing renewed criticism in the wake of one particularly heinous crime.
On Monday, a federal judge in Massachusetts sentenced Daniel Tocci to four years in prison followed by five years of supervised release after he was convicted of possessing more than 100,000 child pornography images, as well as photos and videos showing extreme deadly violence against women and animals.
Tocci had been previously charged with crimes connected to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6. Trump—who was impeached for a historic second time for inciting the insurrection—pardoned more than 1,500 Capitol insurrectionists, including those who brutally attacked law enforcement officers, on his first day back in the White House.
The largest US police union warned at the time that the mass pardon sent "a dangerous message" that would "embolden" criminals, a warning that was echoed by numerous civil society groups.
However, Trump was undaunted, railing against a "corrupt" system that wrongfully persecuted "patriots."
Those pardoned "patriots" subsequently went on what the editors of The New York Times on Tuesday described as a "crime spree." At least 33 of them were rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes between the time of their pardon and December 2025, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
"Six of the pardoned January 6th insurrectionists are charged with committing child sex crimes, ranging from sexual assault to possession of child pornography," CREW continued. "At least five were charged with illegal possession of weapons, including at least two who had a previous domestic violence conviction. Five were arrested or charged with driving while impaired or under the influence. In two of these cases, the defendant’s reckless driving resulted in a fatality. Two were charged with rape."
This is Andrew Paul Johnson. Andrew was convicted of insurrection on January 6 for assaulting cops.Trump pardoned Andrew. 9 months later, Andrew was caught molesting children, sharing CSAM, & buying victims' silence by giving them money from a Justice Dept settlement.Trump protects pedophiles.
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— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@qasimrashid.com) March 6, 2026 at 7:30 AM
The Times editors wrote that Trump's "self-serving pardons are so numerous that public attention cannot keep up with them."
"He has created a veritable pardon industry, in which people with White House connections accept payments from wealthy convicts," they continued. "Among those on whom he has bestowed freedom are dozens of people convicted of fraud."
In May 2024, Trump was convicted of 34 fraud-related felonies after he falsified business records regarding hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election.
"He has also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras, who helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, and Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for running Silk Road, a sprawling criminal enterprise that sold drugs," the Times editors added.
Yet Trump ordered the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife for alleged narco-terrorism offenses. He also ordered the campaign of nearly 50 airstrikes on boats allegedly smuggling drugs on the high seas and sent troops into Ecuador in the name of fighting drugs.
Emboldened by their pardons and, critics say, Trump's aura of impunity, some pardoned Capitol insurrectionists have parlayed their participation in the attack into runs for elected office. Some are reveling in their embrace by a Republican Party that has enabled Trump's crimes for years and has whitewashed the terror that lawmakers of both parties felt during the Capitol attack.
Steve Bannon: The J6ers are here at CPAC! All of them! The J6 choir is gonna play the Kennedy Center! pic.twitter.com/Lkj3nRPxqD
— Grace Chong, MBI (@gc22gc) February 20, 2025
Others are suing the federal government for tens of millions of dollars, alleging that the law enforcement officers—five of whose deaths are linked to the events of January 6—physically and emotionally harmed them that day. One woman, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed while storming the Capitol; the Trump administration agreed to a nearly $5 million settlement with her family and the Air Force offered full military funeral honors.
Responding to Tocci's sentencing for child pornography possession, Scott Kelley Ernest, a former white supremacist who now helps others leave hate groups, quipped on Bluesky, "Another one bites the dust... until Trump hires him to be an ambassador."
That's exactly what the president did for Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who in 2005 was convicted of 18 felony counts including illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. Trump pardoned the elder Kushner in 2020 and, in 2025, appointed him ambassador to France and Monaco, a known hub of illicit financial activity.
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New Polling Shows That the Bottom Has Fallen Out for Trump’s Economic Job Performance
These numbers are so dramatic that they argue for a reboot of the Trump administration’s economic messaging.
Dec 12, 2025
Polling released by the AP/NORC on December 11 shows that the bottom has fallen out for President Donald Trump on his job performance on the economy. Just under a third (31%) approve of Trump’s work on the economy. This is a nine-point drop and is the lowest that the AP/NORC has recorded in either Trump’s first or second terms. Fully 80% of Independent voters give Trump negative scores on his economic stewardship. As you could have guessed, Democrats are nearly unanimous in giving Trump failing grades on the economy (93%). What is quite significant is that 29% of Republicans give Trump failing grades on the economy.
Voters’ perceptions of the economy are also very pessimistic. Overall, 68% say that the economy is in poor shape. Both Democrats (84%) and Independents (80%). Republicans offer a more mixed picture (56% good, 44% poor).
The most significant part of the AP/NORC findings is not Trump’s scores on the economy as they have been poor for some time. What is striking is that on his two signature issues of crime and immigration, Trump fares very poorly. Fully 60% of voters disapprove of Trump’s work on immigration including 70% of Independents. Trump’s grades on immigration are boosted by his GOP support (80% approve, 19% disapprove).
Only in relative terms, does Trump fare better on the issue of crime. Forty-three (43%) approve. Two-thirds (66%) of Independents give Trump failing grades on the economy. As was the case with immigration, Trump’s scores on crime are boosted by his strong support among Republicans (80% approve, 19% disapprove).
If the Trump administration is looking at the data honestly, they must be troubled that Independents and Democratic are on question after questions almost in alignment on their negative assessment of Trump’s job as president.
There is literally no good news for Trump or for that matter the GOP in the AP/NORC polling. These numbers are so dramatic that they argue for a reboot of the Trump administration’s economic messaging. Trump’s ratings on crime and immigration are a real problem, but what really threatens Trump are voters’ perceptions of his economic stewardship. Trump won the presidency in large part because voters thought that he would do a better job on the economy than Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rather than change course on the economy, the Trump administration seems likely to continue to blame the Biden administration for the state of the economy. There is nothing in polling data that would indicate that this will work. Furthermore, Trump’s remarks in Pennsylvania on December 9 also indicate that he is not aware or willing to accept voters’ perceptions of his handling of the economy. This is a clear warning sign of a Democratic landslide in 2026.
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Corporations, Not Immigrants, Are Driving a US Crime Wave
Even the Cato Institute found that incarceration rates for immigrants are far lower than those for the native-born.
Sep 28, 2025
Fear of street crime and criminals is a politically charged issue. Politicians stoke that fear to gain the consent of voters, from the anti-Black Willie Horton commercial ads of US GOP President George H. W. Bush against Democrat Michael Dukakis in the presidential campaign of 1988 to President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 successful runs for the White House. After decades of economic globalization and climate disruptions, the tough-on-crime platform has evolved from anti-Blackness to migrant demonization. While the former remains central to US politics, the latter demonizes the national origin of criminals, actual and fictional, right up to the president castigating immigration as an invasion creating social ruination at the United Nations recently.
How does such rhetoric match up with data on incarceration for immigrants and the native-born in the US.? We turn to a new study from the Cato Institute, a contributor to the Department of Government Efficiency, a wrecking ball on federal programs and workforce, and Project 2025, the Trump White House’s playbook for restructuring US democracy.
Cato scholars Alex Nowrasteh and Krit Chanwong analyzed annual data from the American Community Survey and found that incarceration rates for immigrants are far lower than those for the native-born.
To this end the duo plotted “the incarceration risk for individuals born in 1990 by immigration status. For the 1990 cohort, native-born Americans were 267% more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants by age 33. Eleven percent of native-born Americans in that year-born cohort have been incarcerated compared to just 3% of immigrants. Other countries really are sending their best.”
In contrast, White House border czar Tom Homan is involved with federal immigration raids that, according to him, are “targeting the worst of the worst.” Homan allegedly took $50,000 in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting recently.
What about the incarceration risks for immigrants and native-born Americans who are Asian, Hispanic, Black, and white?
Immigrants born in 1990 had a significantly lower incarceration risk than native-born Americans for all races and ethnicities born in the same year. All (legal plus illegal) Hispanic, Asian, Black, and white immigrants as groups each have a lower incarceration rate than white native-born Americans. Asian illegal immigrants have the lowest incarceration risks at around 0.08%.
Here’s a reason why immigrants may have lower incarceration rates. “Noncitizen criminals who are incarcerated are deported after serving their sentences,” according to Alex Nowrasteh and Krit Chanwong, “which means they don’t respond to future American surveys because they are no longer on American soil. Put another way, our study measures whether the respondents have ever been incarcerated.”
All things equal, one thing is clear. Immigrants are not driving a crime wave in the US. There is a wave of corporate crime stateside, however, with companies such as Boeing and its 737 MAX aircraft crashes a case in point.
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