Trump has tiptoed around whether he would pardon all defendants from the Jan. 6 riot, though Biden’s recent pardon of his son could give the incoming president cover to pull off what some of his most die-hard allies are requesting him to do — blanket immunity for more than 1,561 people charged criminally as a result of the riot.

Mike Davis, who served as chief counsel for judicial notations to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) during Trump’s first term in office, told the Washington Examiner that Trump should apply the same standard that Biden has set for pardoning criminal defendants such as his own son.

“Using the Biden pardon standard that the Biden Justice Department politicized and weaponized, President Trump should pardon all Jan. 6 defendants,” Davis said, noting he has not spoken to Trump about his plans.

Other top members of Davis’s organization, the conservative Article III Project, were similarly enthusiastic about getting pardons for every defendant from the riot.

Will Chamberlain of the A3P quoted Biden’s statement, in which he alleged “raw politics” infected his son’s criminal cases and led to a “miscarriage of justice.”

“I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

President Trump should just copy-paste this sentence into every one of his pardons of J6 defendants, grandmas convicted of praying in front of abortion clinics, etc pic.twitter.com/2jRPNBwiAG

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) December 2, 2024

“President Trump should just copy-paste this sentence into every one of his pardons of J6 defendants, grandmas convicted of praying in front of abortion clinics, etc,” Chamberlain said.

Trump has avoided specifying which defendants he might pardon, saying in May 2023 that he is inclined to “pardon many of them,” though admitting “a couple of them” acted out of line.

According to the Justice Department, 140 police officers were assaulted during the riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021, including 80 Capitol Police officers and 60 from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, meaning Trump’s considerations to pardon every defendant would effectively immunize many who were accused of assaulting police throughout the day.

But many of the pardons would also apply to defendants who were charged with simple misdemeanors such as trespassing or parading in a restricted area, a charge some are even petitioning the Supreme Court to remove.

The Supreme Court also dealt a blow to more than 100 Jan. 6 cases in which the DOJ tried to leverage an obstruction charge that carried a maximum of 20 years in prison. The justices ruled 6-3 earlier this year that nearly every defendant facing that charge would need to have their cases reexamined and likely see the charge dropped due to its overly broad application.

Discussions around pardons for Jan. 6 defendants come weeks after Trump’s election victory on Nov. 5. While Trump has remained relatively silent about pardons for some of his indicted supporters, he reignited speculation about his plans when he invoked those defendants in a statement Sunday evening.

“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday evening.

The prospect that Trump could now pardon nearly every Jan. 6 defendant, even those charged with violence against law enforcement officers, was also raised by Trump’s critics in the hours after Biden’s unprecedented pardoning decision.

John Bolton, a former assistant to the president for national security affairs, predicted Monday that the pardoning of Hunter Biden would trigger a downwind effect that would “give Trump the license to pardon all of his supporters including those from Jan. 6.”

“Biden is doing exactly the wrong thing by pardoning Hunter,” said Bolton, who, despite previously working under Trump, has been a critic of his foreign policy and leadership style.

The younger Biden is now clear of any punishment after he was set to be sentenced for crimes related to buying a gun while under the influence of an illicit drug and other crimes related to failure to pay taxes for the years 2016 through 2019.

When asked about Trump’s Jan. 6 comparison on Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated, “We’ve been very clear about January 6th.” The Biden administration has been accused of lying because officials promised Hunter Biden would not receive a pardon.

“The president has been clear” about Jan. 6, Jean-Pierre said. “He has spoken to that many times before.”

While it is unclear who else Biden may pardon and how his decision could shape the way Trump utilizes the power when he takes office, Jean-Pierre said there would be more pardon announcements to come “at the end of this term.”