The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Jan. 6 Report; Biden Issues Pardons

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

In a new report, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice looked into FBI shortcomings in the run up to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Then, President Biden has issued a number of pardons and commutations as he prepares to leave office. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han and Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When it came out in 1843, a Christmas carol was a sensation, and Charles Dickens became a legend. Some people would consider him the originator of Christmas or the inventor of Christmas. The past, present, and future of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Listen to Thulein wherever you get your podcasts. wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Molly at American University, where I just turned in my last final exam for Professor Ron Elving's class on Congress and Legislative Behavior. This podcast was recorded at 1210 PM on Friday, December 13th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will be looking forward to a relaxing

winter break. Okay, here's the show. Ron, you gotta give her an A. Professor Elving. I would love to take one of Ron's classes. Maybe I'll sign back up and go back to AU, my alma mater. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And that Justice Department released a long-awaited report on the FBI's

role around the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Ryan, what are the big takeaways? Whew. Well, this is a report that we've been waiting almost four years for it to be to look at the calendar here. It's almost been four years. So it's important to lay out here that the FBI was not in charge of security or intelligence gathering for the events of January 6, 2021. That responsibility fell to the U.S. Capitol Police, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, and then the Park Police. And we should note that the shortcomings of those agencies have been widely documented in congressional investigations.

Right. And this Justice Department Inspector General report looks at specifically, it's pretty narrow, it's the FBI's intelligence gathering in use of confidential human sources, we would refer to them colloquially as informants, in the lead up to January 6th. What the Inspector General found is that the FBI, ahead of January 6th, recognized that there was a potential

for violence, that it took appropriate steps to prepare, for example, trying to identify known domestic extremists who planned to be in DC for January 6. But the Inspector General found that there was a basic step that the FBI did not take, and that is that it did not canvas all of its field offices about potential threats specifically

to the certification on January 6th. Doing so as common practice ahead of big events kind of gives the FBI a fuller understanding as much as possible of a threat picture. And it can then share that information and make necessary operational decisions with law enforcement. In this instance, it didn't do that.

From the report, it looks like it just kind of fell through the cracks. There were other canvassing things that they did related to the inauguration, but specifically to January 6th, it did not. I will also say that the report doesn't suggest that doing so would have drastically changed what happened on January 6th.

It's just that this is one of those basic steps that it could have taken that might have helped. And Ryan, what predicated this report? Well, like after the January 6th attack, there were a ton of questions about how this was able to happen because there had been public reporting about potential threats, threat of violence on January 6th. And so nine days after the events of January 6th,

on January 15th, the Justice Department's Inspector General announced that it was going to look at the role of the Justice Department, the FBI, and how they prepared for and then responded to the events on January 6th. So that's what this review comes out of. This also comes at a time when the FBI is under immense scrutiny and particularly from the incoming president. So any report that sort of puts a black mark on the agency, it's not great timing for them. There have been for years questions raised by lawmakers about the FBI's role that day,

who was there that day, all these conspiracy theories about people in the crowd and their relationship to the FBI. Right. There were these theories that the FBI somehow instigated the January 6th Capitol attack. This report does look at that and the inspector general found that there were no undercover FBI employees in the protest crowd on January 6th. The report found that there were 26 FBI informants who were in DC on that day. Three of them had been tasked specifically by the FBI with reporting on domestic terrorists who might attend. So this is the sort

of work that you would want the FBI to be doing. None of the informants were authorized to enter the Capitol. None of the informants were authorized to break the law or encourage others to do so. And this is really pushing back on this idea that, as you noted, that there are these conspiracy theories that the FBI was very much behind this instigating the violence in the inspector general says not the case. Right. And Ryan, you know better than I do, but in terms of law enforcement working with informants and what they're able to communicate and control what they do, sometimes kind of limited, especially in this kind of environment where there just were like thousands of people.

There were thousands of people. And in this instance, they weren't supposed to go into the Capitol. They were not authorized to go into the Capitol. There were 26 there that day, as I said, four of the informants entered the Capitol itself on January 6th. Another 13 of them entered a restricted area around the Capitol. And then nine of them didn't do either. None of them had been prosecuted for this. They weren't according to the report involved in any violence or anything, but yeah, you can't control what happens in the, in the flow of, of, you know, something chaotic, like, like, like

January 6th. One other thing that the report notes is that the FBI was getting information from these, these informants about various groups who were potentially going to be in DC that day, including the oath keepers, uh, members of the proud boys, two extremist groups whose members of some of them have been charged and convicted of seditious

conspiracy, um, in connection with January 6th. But one of the big questions hanging over all of this until this report now was did. Information intelligence that would have headed this off beforehand. did any of that slip through the cracks? And according to this report, the answer to that question as well is no. It's interesting to me because this report seems to completely close the chapter on this idea that FBI informants were somehow involved in instigating the attack on the Capitol. But Deirdre, yes,

it's a conspiracy theory, but I think it's worth noting that this is a theory that's also taken hold within the halls of Congress. There have been certain lawmakers, I'm thinking of Clay Higgins, who's a Republican from Louisiana, who has very publicly raised doubts about that. He even publicly questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray about it at one point in a hearing. I'm not sure that even an official government report is going to end that debate. I agree. The FBI is still housed at the Justice Department, which a lot of House Republicans, including the one you mentioned, criticize as weaponizing the department broadly against

its political enemies. So I don't think, even though it's an independent report and an investigation that's done on an issue that members of Congress have been pushing back on for years, and this issue came up over and over again during the January 6 investigation, and we talked about the problems with the law enforcement sharing information at the Capitol and the leadership in the Capitol Police, et cetera, responding to things. I still think that Republicans will largely ignore this report and for the part that is critical of the FBI, glom onto that as furthering their own argument that the agency has to be overhauled. Do you think Republicans writ large or just the Republicans such as Clay Higgins who are

disinclined to believe anything coming out of the current justice department or FBI? I think the shift in the Republican party is really remarkable on the issue of their attitude towards the justice department and the FBI. These are agencies that Republicans pre Donald Trump, you know, largely supported and praised and supported funding in their investigations.

I think the skepticism and the party and the attitude towards these agencies is something that has become more widespread than just sort of the election denial crowd that talks more about the 2020 election. I think that there are, you know, a lot of sort of mainstream Republicans who are critical of the Justice Department and the FBI. Still, despite the fact that you may not convince people who are inclined to believe conspiracy theories about the FBI's role, I think that it's worthwhile to have on the record from an independent watchdog within the justice

department who conducted a four year investigation to say this is what we found. And so the rest of the country can look at it and decide whether they want to believe it or not. But these are the facts as discovered by the department's inspector general, an independent internal watchdog and that in and of itself, I think holds holds value. All right, Ryan, thank you so much. Thank you. Deirdre, you stick around. We're going to take a break more in a moment.

And we're back and NPR's Deepa Shivaram is with us. Hey Deepa. Hey. So earlier this week, president Biden issued the biggest set of one day pardons and commutations ever. What kind of people were the target of this? Yeah, so this was a big sweeping use of the clemency power that President Biden used, and it was kind of broken up into two categories. So it was like about 1,500 people had their

sentences commuted, and then an additional 39 people were pardoned. And, you know, these are all pretty much regular folks. The group of about 1,500 people are people who, during the COVID pandemic, were in prisons. And you guys remember, that was one of the places that COVID was spreading the most, right? You can't really quarantine in an area that's super confined and closed. And so because there were people in prison

who were at risk of dying or contracting the disease, spreading the disease, they moved them into home confinement. And that happened under the Trump administration in an emergency kind of order. So these folks, about 1,500 of them, whose sentences were commuted, have been on home confinement out of prison for at least a year.

And those were the people who Biden commuted their sentences for. And so that means that they were previously at risk for maybe getting sent back to prison to finish their sentence. Now their sentences for. And so that means that they were previously at risk for maybe getting sent back to prison to finish their sentence. Now their sentences have ended. And these are people who have been living in society, obviously on home confinement, but have been out of prison for a while now.

The other group of people were 39 individuals who were pardoned. These are not like famous names. These are people who the president says have contributed to their communities. Many of them were women and veterans. A lot of them were folks who were doing work to give back to their communities in ways of working with folks who had also been formerly incarcerated, working with people who had substance abuse issues. And they were all people who had been convicted of nonviolent crimes, many of them drug-related crimes. It's hard not to see this through a bit of a political lens because not too long ago, President Biden pardoned his son Hunter. And there was a bit of an angry reaction from within the

party and a lot of top Democrats saying, hey, like that's cool, but maybe you should focus on regular people that deserve clemency. And he just did exactly that. Even if it wasn't intentionally reactive, it kind of looks reactive to that opposition. I mean, it sort of begs the question in terms of the Biden administration strategy, like, why didn't they do this all at once? That it wouldn't have been just all about Hunter. I think that Democrats were awkwardly trying to avoid talking about the Hunter Biden pardon because a lot of congressional Democrats at the end of a president's term or Republicans approach the White House because this is a traditional end of term process that if there is a constituent

who is in a situation where you believe their case warrants it, that you approach the president to ask for clemency or a pardon. And there were groups of Democrats who were sending these letters to the Biden White House laying out, here's this group of people, you have the power, please take action. And the action he took was instead to first focus on his son, Hunter. And so I think Democrats in the last day, since this action has been taken, have been pretty complimentary of the White House saying like, these are exactly the right kinds of people.

We praise the president for doing what they think was right. But it did sort of, I think leave a bad taste in people's mouth that the order of how this happened. Yeah, the order of how it happened and also like the, the clemency power is very vast, right? Like as you can see the president pardoning his own son, all the way to these people who are on home confinement. But there are a lot of advocates I was talking to just in the last day or two who were saying

in terms of this action that Biden took yesterday, this was like the low hanging fruit is kind of the way that folks have been describing it. Like it is a small potatoes sort of thing, especially because these are folks who have been out of prison already. And so this is something that they kind of see the president could have done a year ago, two years ago, like he did not have to wait until the end of his term to take this kind of action. And so at the same time that people, you know, there are people on the Hill and others who are saying, you know, this is, this is great. This is a small

good step forward. They definitely are still looking for way more from the president in the next couple of weeks of his term. Um, you know, looking at folks who are on death row and pardons for them, but also, you know, Biden has tried to do a lot or said he wanted to do a lot when it comes to marijuana and the racial inequity that comes with marijuana charges. And so they're looking for him to do more with people who have, you know, been charged with distribution of marijuana and maybe taking some actions on that in the coming weeks. It certainly doesn't feel like this is the last we will hear

from the president on pardons before he leaves office. But Deirdre, there's also a really interesting debate happening right now among Democrats over whether Biden should issue what I think they're calling blanket pardons or preemptive pardons for some of Donald Trump's political enemies. Right, and I think that there's actually a divide

inside the Democratic Party in terms of whether or not he should do that. There's some sense that people who are involved in the January 6th committee, who President-elect Trump did an interview recently with Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, he suggested that members of the January 6th committee should go to jail. That raised a lot of eyebrows with people on Capitol Hill. Some of the people on that committee have spoken out about this idea that there could be a blanket pardon. Newly sworn in Senator Adam Schiff, who was a House member and served on the January 6th committee, has publicly been saying he doesn't want one.

He doesn't think it's a good precedent. The president shouldn't issue them. The chairman of the January 6th committee, Benny Thompson, had a different take. He said it's really the president's prerogative. If he issued a blanket pardon, I would accept it. There is some concern that Thompson has raised about staff of the January 6 committee, the lawyers on the committee, the people who wrote the report, the staffers for the committee, if the new Trump administration decides to go after them for retribution, as the president-elect says, these are people who would have to hire lawyers and pay a lot of money and they're not elected members of Congress. Schiff argues

like we were doing our job, we did nothing wrong. There's nothing to pardon us for. And look, I think it's likely that President Biden makes more news on the pardon front. And frankly, President-elect Donald Trump is already promising to make pardon news, I think, as early as day one of his administration, where all indication points to the likelihood that he does pardon some number of people who have been charged in association with the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Right. In his interview with Time Magazine, he says within minutes, maybe minutes

of being sworn in on January 20th. One last question for both of you, I think a lot of times in this phase of a presidency when pardons often occur there's oftentimes like public relations campaigns for certain individuals. Is there anybody to watch this time around that has any sort of lobbying campaign or public mobilizing campaign to seek a pardon for them. Yeah, I've seen a letter circulating among some congressional Democrats appealing to the Biden White House to pardon Leonard Peltier.

He's been in prison for decades, and a lot of the people around his case argue that he was wrongly imprisoned and that Biden should be the one to pardon him. A lot of the other letters I've seen are sort of like categories of people. You know, the DIPA was mentioning in terms of marijuana infractions

or other sort of categories of crimes that they argued that the president should pardon. Yeah, I will say, I think specifically like, you know, pardoning people who are on death row and facing the death penalty is like a little bit of a trickier political thing to navigate, right? Compared to something like simple possession of marijuana

and stuff like that. But it is kind of interesting that there are a lot of advocates who are saying, you know, this is something that Biden should do for a number of reasons, but they also really feel like, you know, Trump in his first term had a really, really high rate of federal executions. And they kind of see that as potentially what's coming

again in another Trump term. So they're kind of using that argument as like added pressure on Biden for the death row pardon specifically. All right we need to take another break but when we get back time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back and it's time for Can't Let It Go the part of the show where we talk about the things for the week we just cannot stop thinking about politics or otherwise. I'm going to go first because the thing I can't let go is when I woke up this morning and was scrolling the news headlines, it was the thing that made me audibly gasp. I was like, oh, and it was a recall of certain Stanley mugs, you know, the very omnipresent Stanley mugs, recalling 2.6 million of these

mugs. But the reason why I like so reacted to it is I just feel like they've become so omnipresent in our lives and among all generations. And when I thought about Stanley mugs being recalled, I was like, that's got to be so many mugs. But when I looked into it, it's only the 12 and 16 ounce Stanley mugs. So you're ginormous. Those aren't cool to carry. You got to have the big one. 12 ounces.

What am I, a toddler? But so your 40 ounce, your 60 ounce, your 80 ounce Stanley mugs, America, they're safe. But if you've got a little teeny tiny one, you better, it's been recalled, go get a safe one. I feel like Stanley just like flew too close to the sun kind of situation. It had to be humbled a little bit. I was worried if someone bought them for Christmas as like a stocking stuffer and then they're like oh no. I don't know if you've ever seen these on social media but now there's all these like I would

almost call them deranged Stanley accessories where you can get like jackets for your Stanley and like holders for all your other like your phone and wallet. Definitely too close to the sun. Yeah, too much. Dears, what about you? What can't you look of? Speaking of Christmas, it's holiday work party season. And when I think of like out of control holiday parties, I don't really think of Buckingham

Palace. No. But evidently an after party involving the household staff of Buckingham Palace got a little crazy, in fact out of control, and a 24 year old housemaid, part of the household staff of Buckingham Palace, was arrested for smashing glasses and things kind of went off the rails. And it was like, you don't want to be that person at the work holiday party, right? Dude, I gotta be honest, the Irish in me is quite amused at this story.

I was gonna leave that out too, but... I can never resist. You don't wanna be that person at the holiday party, but you wanna be the person that witnesses it to get to tell everybody else about the goss that happened at the holiday party. Deepa, what about you? What can you look off? Okay, so I know this is like the one thing that everyone is probably sick of hearing at this point,

but I saw Wicked and here's the thing. Wicked was great, okay? I want to see it. It was amazing. If you haven't seen the movie, totally, totally worth seeing. But it really just like brought out the inner band kid in me. I don't know if you guys were like band or orchestra people, choir people, like whatever you did in school. But I was in band for a really long time and we, on one of our band trips, saw Wicked on Broadway when I was a sophomore in high school. And so have been such a big fan ever since. And the movie just

was amazing and it really kind of reminded me that being around other people and playing music together is such a critical part of so many people's childhoods if you were a music kid. And so I just, you know, shout out to the band kids, to the theater kids. If Wicked is making you sob in the theater, you're not alone. You're giving them something right. You know? I'm glad it lived up to the hype though, because I haven't seen it. And now I'm glad it's going.

It really did. And this is going to sound really weird when I say it, but Ariana Grande genuinely melted into the role. I forgot I was watching Ariana Grande, which I feel like when you're that she's really talented. Yeah, she really committed to the bit. Yeah. I also, I really want to see it. I have no doubt I would love it. Everyone I know loved it. I have just reached the point in my life when you tell me a movie is two hours and 40 minutes. It was so long. Who has got that kind of time? That is a wrap for us today. Our executive producer is Mathony Maturi.

Casey Morell edits the podcast. Our producers are Jung Yoon Han and Kelly Wessinger. And it's the last day here for Jung Yoon. She's staying in the NPR family to cover the New York State House based out of your next favorite member station, WXXI. We're going to miss her a whole lot. And we thank you, Jung Yoon, for all the hard work you did for us this past year.

Yay, yay, Jung Yoon. I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics. I'm Deepa Sivaram, I cover the White House. I'm Deirdre Walsh, I cover Congress. And thanks for listening to the MPR Politics Podcast.