February 10, 2025 11:38 AM UTC

Senate Republicans Vote Against Resolution Condemning J6 Insurrection Pardons

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• by: Colorado Pols

Democrats in the State Senate opened their legislative week by bringing to the floor a resolution condemning President Trump’s pardons of criminals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection (which included 20 Coloradans).

The discussion over SJR25-006 was fairly brief, with Sen. Nick Hinrichsen (D-Pueblo) delivering a speech in opposition to the pardons from his perspective as a military veteran. Senator Mark Baisley (R-Roxborough Park), a Republican who is hoping to win the GOP nomination for Governor in 2026, briefly attempted a rebuttal focused on the irrelevant angle that Trump was duly elected as President and therefore does indeed have the power to issue pardons — a point that nobody was arguing against. On the final vote, ALL 12 REPUBLICANS IN THE STATE SENATE voted against condemning the Trump pardons.

With approval from Democrats, the resolution will now move to the State House of Representatives, where rocket surgeons such as Reps. Ken “Dildo” DeGraaf and Scott “There is No” Bottoms will no doubt be less disciplined than their GOP counterparts in the Senate in not saying really stupid stuff on the record.

Trump addressed the J6 pardons again on Sunday, using absurd language claiming that the rioters who openly fought with police officers were the real victims:

“I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. That’s who assaulted — and they were treated unfairly, there’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance that I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,” Trump insisted.

“I didn’t assault, they didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.” [Pols emphasis]

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) do not agree with this perspective, for very obvious reasons. But Republicans in Colorado are too afraid to cross their Orange Overlord in questioning the J6 pardons. Freshman Congressman Jeff “Bread Sandwich” Hurd (R-Grand Junction) told Colorado Public Radio in January that he was “deeply disappointed” by Trump’s J6 pardons. That honesty earned Hurd a stern rebuke from the Colorado Republican Party, which was still attacking him on Sunday:

Hurd is now walking back his concerns about Trump’s pardons, claiming that he supports the (original) position of Vice President JD Vance, who was (kinda) against Trump issuing a blanket pardon but then fell in line after it happened. Vance was (originally) concerned about the ugly criminal records of many of those convicted in the insurrection; indeed, several of those people receiving pardons wasted no time getting into trouble again. For example:

♦ Matthew Huttle was fatally shot by police officers in Indiana just days after he was pardoned by Trump. Huttle was in possession of a firearm during a traffic stop in which in apparently attacked a police officer;

♦ Andrew Taake of Houston was arrested on Thursday on charges of online solicitation of a minor;

♦ Benjamin Martin of Fresno was re-arrested on a firearms violation shortly after his J6 pardon;

♦ Dan Wilson of Louisville, KY, who helped plan Jan. 6 attacks coordinated through the racist Oath Keepers group, was ordered back to prison last week on weapons charges.

This is great, said nobody involved with humanity.

When you can’t even find the courage to speak out against people who literally assaulted police officers while trying to overthrow democracy, you haven’t left yourself a lot of wiggle room to pound your fist on the table about anything else.

But for Colorado Republicans, the only real crime would be so much as questioning the decisions of Dear Leader Trump.