It was the weather, officially, that brought the Capitol’s Rotunda room to the visual centre of Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Instead of pictures of that endless crowd – size debatable – stretching down the Washington Mall as far as the eye could see, the ceremony was by and large reduced to what could be seen inside that perfect-for-TV domed hall.
We got to see every gesture, every laugh or grimace previous presidents and their First Ladies were making. We got to name the tech bros individually as they lined up just one row behind the action, the new aristocracy in the second court of Trump.
But most of all, we got to admire the panoply, the exquisite serenity, of that space – the symbolic and physical heart of world power – which just four years earlier had been reduced to a scene of carnage, violence, injury and even death – when supporters of Trump had stormed the hall to try and seize the election for him.
Inaugurations are by their very nature the days that history is made. The ushering in of the new president, the passing of the baton from loser to winner. But this inauguration has both written history, and, crucially rewritten history.
Because less then 10 hours after he became president, amidst some of the tightest security arrangements this city has ever witnessed (ask the desperate Uber drivers trying to navigate road closures) and surrounded at every second by law enforcement officers to keep him from harm, Donald Trump chose to pardon over 1,500 of those charged in connected with the attack on Washington’s Capitol.
The second era of Trump began, in other words, with pardons and commutations for those convicted of assault and of seditious conspiracy. The men and women who were incited to violence to “do right” by Trump who claimed the election had been stolen from him.
There is no peace in Trump's new American empire
Read MoreFourteen members of the nationalist militia groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have had sentences commuted. Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys who was serving a 22-year sentence for using violent force against the government in a cell in Louisiana, is being freed from prison as I write.
Hundreds of others will receive “full, complete and unconditional” pardons – wiping their records clean – and making them heroes in the eyes of those who’ve stood vigil outside the DC detention facility where they’ve been held, demanding their release. These are the men and women Donald Trump has referred to as “hostages”.
It has taken months, sometimes years to bring about these prosecutions. The largest single criminal enquiry the Justice Department has ever undertaken. One investigator, Alexis Loeb, who had worked on the 6 January assault cases responded to the Trump move by noting “if you commit acts of violence, as long as you do so on behalf of a politically powerful person you may be able to escape consequences”.
Because ultimately this is not about the convicted, it’s not about the rioters, the individual men and women many of whom have served time for their actions already. It’s about Trump himself.
This pardon isn’t an act of compassion. It’s an act of retribution. Vindication. Trump is, in essence, pardoning his own actions. He has never apologised for trying to defraud the American people of their rightful choice.
The Trump who once tried to distance himself from this mob, calling them intruders “defiling the seat of American democracy” and referring to the riot as “a heinous attack” is dead and buried. The newly installed president will now recast all those involved in this shameful act as victims – and he, the biggest amongst them.
Trump's inauguration was sealed with a kiss that never was
Read MoreOn the same day he issued pardons to the guilty, president Biden made his last act in office the issuing of pre-emptive pardons to his family members – who he insisted – had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t the finest piece of statesmanship from the outgoing president. It seemed to come preposterously late, almost cowardly in its quietness. He’s caused a headache for democrats by allowing this to become a response to Trump’s own actions.
But this would be to create a false equivalence. Biden’s actions are a response to Trump’s threats. A kind of future-proofing against a man he calls the biggest threat to democracy. When Trump promises to pursue political vendettas, he believes him.
As the Congressman Jamie Raskin wryly noted, “pardons for the innocent in the morning and for the guilty in the afternoon”. Except to Trump and his followers, they will never be guilty. They will be recast as political prisoners.
Trump’s greatest skill has always been in knowing how to manipulate a crowd to believe him. And on day one of this new administration this is perhaps what we must all get used to.
It is no longer enough to parrot cliches about history being written by the victors. It is being rewritten before our eyes.
Emily Maitlis is a journalist, broadcaster and host of the podcast The News Agents
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