Republican Lawmakers BEGGED Trump For Pardons After Capitol Riot

According to the Thursday night January 6th hearing, multiple Republican members of Congress tried to get pardons from Donald Trump following the Capitol Riot (and their plans to overturn the election.) This is, as many have pointed out, "consciousness of guilt" that could easily land some of these lawmakers in legal trouble if the DOJ decides to take actions against them. Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Now that the dust is kind of settling on Thursday. Night's, uh, January 6th, select committee hearing. Let's take a look at one of the more, I don't wanna say outrageous, cuz I do believe it. Uh, but just one of the more intriguing revelations from that evening, one of the things that Liz Chaney said was that multiple Republican members of Congress, according to what they have, the committee's evidence had asked Donald Trump for pardons before he left office for their role in trying to overturn the 20, 20 presidential election. And one of those people happens to be Republican Congressman Scott Perry, who of course now heads the house freedom caucus Perry explicitly was named by Liz Chaney. The rest of them were not. So we don't know yet who these other Republicans who begged Donald Trump for pardons could be, but here's the thing. There's something called consciousness of guilt.

And if you're asking for a pardon, even before you've been accused of a crime that is consciousness of guilt, you know, I mean, uh, I would assume my personal opinion that that is consciousness of guilt, right? We can't of course accuse people of things if they've have not been convicted or whatever. But, uh, it does of course tell us that these people understood to a degree that what they did was likely illegal and they wanted Donald Trump to give them these pardons, which as the Supreme court says, acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt, uh, so that they wouldn't get in trouble in the future. So this tells us several things first and foremost, that we need to know the other names. And I'm, I'm sure the committee is probably going to tell us who these other people are in forthcoming, um, televised hearings, the next, which is on Monday morning.

So there's that and then of course the other thing is we need to know why they're not being prosecuted yet. I mean, if you saw it apart and clearly you thought at least something you did was illegal. So I would think the DOJ Merrick Garland needs to get on top of that. The third most important thing is that if Donald Trump ever gets back in office, he's gonna pardon each and every one of these people immediately, it would likely, I imagine be one of his first moves if he becomes president of the United States again. So that's another thing that we have to consider in this nonstop fight against Trump and Trumpism that is happening in America today. We have to make sure this guy doesn't get back in because he'll pardon every one of these people, whether it's the capital rioters themselves, whether it's the people who helped him, uh, attempt to overturn the election, everybody's gonna get pardons on the second time around, you know, Trump had already teased by the way, doing pardons for the, uh, capital rioters themselves before he left office. Ultimately he didn't do it. And that

Actually really off. A lot of the people that participated in the capital riot, they've gone to court claiming he's abandoned us. Oh no, but if he comes back, he's not gonna waste any time. He's gonna make sure that everybody that participated in his coup, whether it was the insurrection itself, or of course the attempted coup to overturn the election, he's gonna make sure these people are legally protected with presidential pardons. So it's not gonna affect them politically. It's not gonna hurt them running for office. Again, it's not gonna send anybody to jail. And the reason I say that is because in the event, right, in the event, we do end up with charges against some of these Republican members of Congress. By the time it goes to trial, we'll probably be smack in the middle of the 20, 24 presidential election. And I know that's weird to think, but first you gotta have the charges you're gonna have, you know, lengthy trials, you're gonna have delays. You could end up having appeals, whatever it is, they wouldn't have to spend much time in prison if they are convicted. So Trump would be able to swoop in, save them and they get off. That's what we have to avoid. I mean, that's just one of many reasons, millions of reasons, probably to keep Donald Trump out of office again. But it's definitely something after Liz Chaney's revelations on Thursday evening that we need to keep in mind.