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House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) says no Republicans in Congress or the White House have contacted him after a Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by former President Donald Trump threatened to kill him, per theGrio.
On Sunday (October 19), Christopher Moynihan, who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was arrested by New York State Police after allegedly sending text messages declaring he planned to "eliminate" Jeffries during the congressman's speaking engagement at the Economic Club. Moynihan had been pardoned by Trump earlier this year, along with more than 1,500 others who participated in the attack on the Capitol.
“Not a single Republican has reached out either from the House, the Senate, or the White House, in connection with the death threat and the arrest,” Jeffries told reporters Thursday (October 23) on Capitol Hill. “But that does not surprise me in terms of the environment that we’re in.”
Moynihan is now facing a felony charge of making a terroristic threat. According to prosecutors, Moynihan was among the first rioters to breach the Capitol grounds during the 2021 attack, entering the Senate gallery and rummaging through Senator Ted Cruz’s desk. Moynihan's 21-month sentence was wiped out by Trump's pardon.
“[Republicans] can’t justify the fact that Donald Trump pardoned hundreds of violent felons on his first day in office,” Jeffries said. “People who brutally beat police officers, including seriously injuring them, on these Capitol steps… he pardons these violent felons and then unleashes them on American communities all across the country, and many of them have reoffended.”
“As they always do, [they] have supported that extreme action. They just can’t simply justify the fact that they’ve put the safety and well-being of the American people in jeopardy by their reckless action,” he added.
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