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Donald Trump has made the highly debatable claim that a new administration scheme to compensate January 6 rioters (among other political allies of his) has been “well-received”.
The infamous January 6 2021 riot saw a mob of Trump supporters storm the US Capitol after he lost the 2020 election to Democratic rival Joe Biden. The attack was widely seen as an attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power and thus has been described as an insurrection.
According to a Justice Department report, around 140 Capitol police officers were assaulted and five died in the aftermath. Four protestors also died.
When Trump reassumed office in 2025, he pardoned a number of January 6 rioters who had been jailed for their involvement. And now, the Justice Department under the Trump administration is going one step further with a “1.7 billion dollar” fund that will see some of the convicted January 6 rioters compensated with taxpayer money.
“Well, it’s been very well received, I have to tell you,’ Trump claimed, before pivoting to claim he doesn’t know about it.
“I know very little about it. I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated. Horribly treated. It’s anti-weaponisation. They’ve been weaponised. They’ve been, in some cases, imprisoned wrongly … Their lives have been ruined and they turned out to be right.”
It would appear that the fund to reimburse rioters has, in fact, not been well-received by many Americans.
“In an autocracy, taxpayers fund state violence,” someone argued.
Another pointed out: “The families of the Capitol police officers who defended our Capitol from HIS goons have been destroyed.
“Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to reward the January 6th terrorists with OUR tax dollars can rot in hell.”
Someone else said it was, “indefensible”.
One person joked: “Yep, everyone is thrilled to see Trump steal $1.8 billion (900,000 food-stamp-person-years) of our tax dollars to give to his criminal friends.”
Another pointed out: “I guess reparations are cool as long as you’re white republican who spent a couple months in jail for trying to overthrow an election…”
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