It is a picture that could hardly be drawn more sharply: While Donald Trump cracks down on demonstrators in Los Angeles protesting his immigration policies, one of his first acts in his second term was to pardon over a thousand individuals – including those who brutally attacked police officers on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to keep him in power. On Monday, Trump posted a martial warning on his social media platform: “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT – and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!” The message was directed at demonstrators in Los Angeles, where the National Guard and Marines have been deployed at his command. The contrast could hardly be starker: While Trump glorifies the violence of his supporters at the Capitol as “a beautiful day,” he threatens peaceful protesters with physical retaliation. It is a double standard that reveals much – and shows how selectively the president applies the rule of law when political loyalty is at stake.
“Trump’s behavior makes clear that he only values the rule of law when it serves his political interests,” says Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University. The pardon covered over 1,000 individuals, including at least 276 who were convicted of assaulting police officers. Many of these attacks – with flagpoles, crutches, or bare fists – were captured on bodycams and surveillance footage. On that day, around 140 officers were injured – according to then-U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, it was “the largest coordinated assault on law enforcement in a single day in American history.”
While some of those pardoned had been convicted only of trespassing or similar offenses, Trump also dropped hundreds of cases against individuals who had not yet been tried. The message is clear: Those who fight for him enjoy impunity – even when committing violence against the state. “These people were extremely violent, and now the president acts as if it all meant nothing,” says Mike Romano, former deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. “And at the same time, he uses the mere possibility of violence at other protests as a pretext to crack down.”
A White House spokesperson defended Trump’s actions: “The president was elected to secure the border, empower federal officials, and restore law and order.” But critics see it primarily as an attempt to stage chaos in order to consolidate power. Trump had already announced during his campaign that he would use civil unrest as a lever to claim sweeping executive powers. On Monday, he followed through – mobilizing a battalion of Marines to support the National Guard, which he deployed against the will of California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. The protests, initially confined to a small area in downtown Los Angeles, escalated after the troops arrived. Demonstrators blocked highways, set self-driving cars on fire, and pelted police with fireworks and debris.
Romano warns of the long-term consequences of these double standards: “If the public gets the impression that the police serve only the president, it undermines trust in the rule of law.” He recalls statements from Capitol rioters who believed police should let them into the building – after all, they had supported law enforcement’s crackdown on anti-police protests in 2020. “This kind of transactional thinking is extremely dangerous.”
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