(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Look Ahead America—a group seeking amnesty on behalf of political dissidents arrested for involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 uprising at the U.S. Capitol—released a video Monday in which it asked leading GOP presidential candidates how they would remediate the partisan prosecutions of J6 participants under the Biden administration.
The group spoke with four top contenders prior to the Iowa caucus: former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson; and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently exited the race and endorsed the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
LAA Executive Director Matt Braynard also explained in the video that while it was unable to ask Trump directly to state his position, he previously had gone on the record in support of pardoning many of the nonviolent participants.
Brayard noted that all the candidates signaled their support in some capacity, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Not a single one of these candidates said, ‘Just lock them up and throw away the key, I don’t care,’” he noted. “All of them gave an answer that at least attempted to be somewhat sympathetic to the people who care about this issue.”
However, the field’s two leading RINOs—Haley and Hutchinson—both predictably fumbled while broaching a subject they were loath to discuss at the risk of alienating left-wing financial backers and prospective voters.
According to Haley, Jan. 6 was a “terrible day. She said those involved who were violent and caused damage to the Capitol should “pay the price.”
Still, Haley admitted that the Biden regime was engaged in nefarious lawfare.
“I think they should have their day in court,” she said, alluding to those imprisoned without a timely hearing.
“If they committed a crime, I think they should be held accountable,” she continued. “If they didn’t commit a crime, I think they should be let go.”
Haley stopped short of saying whether spurious charges, such as parading at the Capitol or obstructing Congress, which have rarely—if ever—been applied to leftist demonstrators and political disruptors, constituted crimes in her view; nor whether the sentences issued by radical Obama judges in the D.C. court system had been just.
Hutchinson, pivoting his response to his executive experience as the governor of Arkansas, was even less willing to go on the record in support of the prisoners, saying only that he would be willing to evaluate their pardon requests.
“I would handle any pardon applications just as I did as governor, which I looked at individually,” he said, adding that he would attempt to judge them all by the same legal principle.
“I would make sure that they were reviewed by my team, and they would look at it in terms of fairness, in terms of justice and equal treatment, and, when appropriate, in terms of mercy,” he continued. “So each of them would be looked at individually.”
Ramaswamy and DeSantis both committed wholeheartedly to pardoning those who have been imprisoned for years by Biden and his regime.
“I will deliver to every peaceful J6 protester a pardon on Jan. 20, 2025,” Ramaswamy said. “And those who have been held without an actual trial or held without even being charged deserve recompense from a government that has wronged them.”
The Florida governor promised “one standard of justice for everybody,” including “pardons and clemency” for those who have been mistreated by the Biden regime.
DeSantis also promised to “clean house and the DOJ and the FBI,” both of which have been weaponized against J6 rally-goers while BLM, Antifa and other extreme-left groups promoting political unrest and domestic terrorism routinely got let off the hook for their crimes.
