Letter: Stauber's silence on pardons is telling

On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to overthrow the election results. They injured more than 140 police officers, five who later died or took their own lives because of the attack.

More than 1,500 insurrectionists were convicted by juries of their peers or pled guilty and were sentenced. President Trump repeatedly called the convicted rioters “hostages” and “patriots,” and the assault “a day of love.” In one of his first acts in office this week he pardoned all but a handful of them.

Our own U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, a former cop himself, first voted in 2021 to try and stop any investigation of these crimes by Congress and then went on to applaud Trump as he promised pardons. Stauber’s accolades and silence are assent.

Trump’s pardons included 600 people who violently assaulted police officers, 200 of them using a deadly or dangerous weapon. These are not trespassing charges, or charges for rowdy behavior that we can excuse as excessive exuberance.

David Dempsey climbed over other rioters “like human scaffolding” to attack officers with his hands, flagpoles, wooden furniture legs, and pepper spray in what the presiding judge described as “exceptionally egregious” attacks.

Daniel Rodriquez pled guilty to using a stun gun which he repeatedly thrust into the throat of Officer Michael Fanone, who had a heart attack and was carried away unconscious. Rodriquez then posted online: “Tazzed the f--- out of the blue.”

There are hundreds more stories of the crimes committed that day. All pardoned. All “patriots,” according to Trump, Stauber, and many Republican leaders.

Stauber can find plenty of energy to blame wokeness, immigrants, transgender youth and Democrats for every ill we face as a society. But he cannot find it in himself to condemn these heinous assaults on police, or the president who celebrates and pardons them. It’s shameful, and it is also deeply dangerous. None of us are better or safer because of it.

Erik Peterson, Esko