CNN
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Former President Donald Trump on Friday said he would appoint a task force to review the cases of people he claimed were unfairly prosecuted in connection with their political beliefs by the Biden administration, if he wins the second term in 2024.
“Tonight, I’m announcing that once I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration,” Trump said at the Prayer Vote Stand Summit hosted. through the Family Research Council in Washington, DC.
Trump said he wanted to “study the situation immediately, and sign their pardons or commutations on the first day.”
The comments from Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, come as he faces a total of 91 charges in four criminal cases that he claims are politically motivated. He pleaded not guilty to charges – two federal and two state – related to the annulment of the election in Georgia, a silent payment to an adult film star in 2016 in Manhattan, the alleged mishandling of classified national defense documents and a federal investigation. related to efforts to subvert the 2020 elections.
Trump has previously suggested he would likely pardon many of the January 6, 2021, rioters convicted of federal crimes if he wins re-election in 2024, though he said Thursday it was “absolutely unlikely” he would pardon himself.
In his remarks on Friday, Trump said about potential pardons or commutations: “I want to sign them on the first day. I want to see what happened. It’s a terrible thing that happened. Twenty and two years, 18 years, 10 years. It’s a terrible thing.
In recent months, Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for leading an elaborate scheme to keep Trump in power after he lost. in the 2020 election, and Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy and leading a failed plot to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden . Dominic Pezzola, a low-level member of the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Trump also pointed Friday to the recent conviction of anti-abortion activists accused of illegally blocking people seeking reproductive health services from accessing a D.C. clinic, saying that “under Biden, some have been sentenced to 10, 15 and even 20 years in prison in retaliation for their political beliefs.”
