As Donald Trump prepares to take office again, the country is still coming to terms with what happened on January 6, 2021. But perhaps the best way to move forward is to neither forgive nor forget the past—but obliterate it. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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What if President Joe Biden had pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists? That is, the 1,500 or so people charged with federal crimes related to the riot. And yeah, I said Joe Biden, not President-elect Donald Trump. This is an idea I've heard floated around these past few weeks. And on its face, it sounds illogical.
Like, why on earth would the outgoing Democratic president pardon people who damaged property or injured law enforcement officers or plotted to overthrow democracy? Trump has said many times that he will pardon the J6ers. He said he'll pardon some of them, or most of them, or even consider pardoning all of them at different times.
He said he'll pardon them on his very first day in office, which is just in a few days.
People that were doing some bad things weren't prosecuted, and people that didn't even walk into the building are in jail right now. So we'll be looking at the whole thing, but I'll be making major pardons. Yes, please.
Right. So why would Biden do that again? I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. The answer to that question requires you to zoom out to different countries and different periods of history to understand the long political traditions that pardons are a part of and what at their very best they could accomplish. And it matters who does the pardoning and their motive for doing it.
I myself did a lot of research on the January 6th prosecutions for a podcast series I hosted for The Atlantic called We Live Here Now. And as I was researching, I came across a couple of articles by author and journalist Linda Kintzler that helped me understand these cases and this charged political moment in a new way. Linda is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.
She writes about politics and collective memory, and she's written for many publications, including The Atlantic. She's also working on a new book about the idea we're talking about today, which is Oblivion. Linda, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
So the J6 prosecutions are for the most part unfolding at the federal courthouse in D.C., just a few blocks from where we are now. Linda, you attended some of these cases. I did also. What is your most vivid or lasting impression from these trials? Oh, wow.
Yeah. I mean, I spent months, I mean, the better part of a year, actually, attending these trials in downtown D.C. And there are so many elements, as you have described, about the courthouse, you know, namely that it's right across from the Capitol and overlooks the grounds upon which all of these crimes happened.
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