Trump could blow it on day one with a catastrophic error that would make him no better than Biden, warns DAN MCLAUGHLIN

Armed with his impressive election mandate, newly elected President Donald Trump has a golden opportunity to deliver justice and restore order in America.

But he could also easily screw that up by granting a blanket amnesty to the deplorable January 6 rioters who caused real bloodshed and chaos.

‘I’m going to act very quickly. First day,” he told NBC News in an interview this weekend as he discussed his plans to pardon rioters.

That is indeed worrying.

Instead of acting like President Joe Biden, this moment calls for asking what Democrats would do… and doing the opposite.

Yes, Biden’s outrageous pardon for his wayward son Hunter gives Trump plenty of political cover to hand out pardons once he is sworn in as president again. And there could be more to come: Biden aides are reportedly talking about forgiving all kinds of people in Washington, including — most ridiculously — former chief medical adviser to the president Dr. Anthony Fauci.

But all that doesn’t mean Trump should follow suit. After all, Biden’s Democrats weren’t just wrong; they also lost the election. Americans don’t want more of the status quo.

Trump has survived the Democrats’ four-year drumming on January 6, which dominated the campaign, to secure the biggest Republican victory in a generation. He even survived a Jan. 6 indictment by Biden’s Justice Department special counsel, Jack Smith. It is clear that voters are eager to consign the whole sad chapter to history.

But he could also easily screw that up by granting a blanket amnesty to the deplorable January 6 rioters who caused real bloodshed and chaos.

But they also elected Trump to end the disorder that reigned under Biden, and to bring sanity to a weaponized justice system that has committed itself to political witch hunts while allowing violent criminals to go free. Trump must break the rotten cycle and end the madness – not perpetuate it.

After the George Floyd summer of 2020, Democratic prosecutors authorized rioters on their own side. Kamala Harris helped raise money to save rioters in Minnesota, then chose as her 2024 running mate the governor who gave them free rein in the first place.

Even the BLM rioters who were convicted received unnecessarily light sentences, such as ten years for a fatal arson. In 2021, a man who set fire to a courthouse in Portland, Oregon was given a probation deal by Biden’s Justice Department. In 2022, Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman — two New York lawyers who threw Molotov cocktails into a police car — fared better when Biden’s prosecutors agreed to shorten their sentences (to just a year and 15 months, respectively). .

Voters noticed. Mike Schmidt, the Portland district attorney who went to great lengths to sympathize with BLM rioters and refused to prosecute most of them, lost his re-election bid in May of this year. Other criminally coddled prosecutors have suffered a similar fate.

What should happen after major riots is for the government to throw the book at people who commit violence and property damage. And we have to do it in a very public way, setting examples and sending the message that civil disorder will not be tolerated.

The Biden Democrats did that with the January 6 rioters. It was the right idea. But they refused to do the same to the rioters on their own side, and that is the real scandal.

It is also true that a large dragnet like the January 6 prosecutions is certain to cause injustice. The current administration has spent tens of millions of dollars and charged more than 1,500 people in connection with that fateful day.

In June of this year, the Supreme Court even ruled that federal prosecutors had been too heavy-handed and wrongly charged many of the rioters.

But that was little balm for the defendants – many of them non-violent – ​​whose cases have not yet resulted in a conviction, and who have now been living under threat of prison for four years. Some were also held for long periods before trial.

For the non-violent protesters who caused no property damage, that trial should certainly serve as sufficient punishment.

Of course, it’s worth emphatically stating that the Capitol clash involved very real crimes. It was a dark day for American democracy and an undeniable stain on Trump’s record.

Quite a few of those charged, many of them convicted, have attacked officers.

Trump should “Back the Blue” and remove anyone who has committed attacks on law enforcement from any pardon list.

Of course, it’s worth emphatically stating that the Capitol clash involved very real crimes. It was a dark day for American democracy and an undeniable stain on Trump’s record.

Trump should “Back the Blue” and remove anyone who has committed attacks on law enforcement from any pardon list.

There are also many convictions for property damage. Some of the harshest penalties for such crimes would, after careful investigation, merit a reduction. But they neither deserve nor should receive a pardon.

Trump likes to talk in big, broad terms. And to his credit, he has at least said there “may be some exceptions” to his January 6 pardon promise.

If he makes sure he sees the difference between the worst offenders and the rest, he can send the message he was elected to send: American justice is back in action.

If he is swept up in a blanket pardon for violent criminals, it will be a worrying start to his reign.