U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday she does not support President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people who committed violent crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The roughly 1,500 pardon recipients include 15 people who live in or previously lived in Maine. Ten were charged with misdemeanors while five had felony charges for allegedly assaulting police officers who tried to defend the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob that disrupted Congress as it certified former President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election.
Trump’s allies had suggested ahead of his second inauguration Monday that he would only pardon the roughly 900 defendants who faced misdemeanor charges, but Trump granted pardons and commutations to violent offenders as well. He ordered the Bureau of Prisons to immediately release the affected inmates and instructed the Justice Department to stop pending prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, whom he has called “hostages” and “patriots.”
Collins, the only Republican in Maine’s congressional delegation, was one of six senators in her party to vote to convict Trump in 2021 on an impeachment charge of inciting the riot. She said she did not vote for him in the November election, but she was also pictured with Trump and other Republican senators at a Sunday breakfast ahead of Monday’s inauguration.
“While I believe some Americans were caught up in the crowd on Jan. 6 and may well deserve the clemency President Trump has given, there is a great difference between violent crimes and non-violent crimes,” she said in a statement. “I do not support pardons given to people who engaged in violence on Jan. 6, including assaulting police officers, or breaking windows to get into the Capitol, for example.”
Collins also said Tuesday she did not agree with former President Joe Biden using the final hours of his presidency to pardon and protect an array of people against potential “revenge” from Trump, including his family members, Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot and police officers who testified about getting attacked at the Capitol.
Collins singled out the pardons for Biden’s family and Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who spent nearly 50 years in prison after being convicted of killing two FBI agents on a reservation in South Dakota.
“This has been a terrible week for our justice system,” Collins said. “Violence must never be tolerated in America.”
The Mainers receiving clemency in Jan. 6 cases included Kyle Fitzsimons, a butcher from Lebanon who received a seven-year prison sentence in 2023 after prosecutors said he was among the “most violent and aggressive” rioters who carried out five assaults on police, with one attack ending the career of a Capitol Police sergeant.
Another notable defendant was Matthew Brackley, a former state Senate candidate from Waldoboro who received a 15-month prison sentence in May 2024 after he pleaded guilty to assaulting police.
Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons and commutations were among a slew of executive orders he issued after his inauguration Monday that seek to end birthright citizenship, pause offshore wind development and declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, among other things.
U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement the riot “was a clear crime that included direct attacks on individual Capitol police officers, leading to serious injury and death.”
“President Trump’s speech touting the importance of law and order is impossible to reconcile with a blanket presidential pardon hours later for those who carried out the attack on the Capitol, along with the rule of law, and the peaceful transfer of power,” King said.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat representing Maine’s 1st District, criticized Trump’s orders Tuesday and called the Capitol riot “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history.”
“To pardon those involved is a shocking dismissal of our justice system, and an insult to the brave heroes who defended the Capitol and the Constitution that day,” Pingree said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a centrist Democrat from the 2nd District, said in Trump’s first term that “the press demanded an immediate reaction from members to everything Trump did or said.”
“All of us — elected officials and the media — need to avoid falling into this routine again. It was exhausting to everyone involved, including the public, but rarely changed anything,” Golden said. “I’m focused on my job and the things I can control.”