An Idaho woman who has been dubbed “MAGA granny” for her role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building has received clemency from President Donald Trump — but her reaction to the pardon is different from most insurrectionists.
Pamela Hemphill said on Tuesday, Jan. 21 — just one day after Trump’s inauguration day, when he ordered over 1,500 people accused or convicted of taking part in the Capitol attack to be granted clemency or their sentences to be communed — that she is rejecting her pardon.
“Accepting the pardon would be an insult to the Capitol Police officers, to the rule of law, to our nation,” Hemphill, 71, said Tuesday, per the Idaho Statesman. “The J6 criminals are trying to rewrite history by saying that it was not a riot; it wasn’t an insurrection. I don’t want to be a part of their trying to rewrite what happened that day.”
According to the Statesman, Hemphill posted video of herself entering the Capitol on social media on Jan. 6, 2021, and she pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol Building in 2022. She was sentenced to two months in jail, three years of probation and had to pay a $500 fine, the outlet added.
Hemphill and her attorney are planning to file a letter of rejection in regards to Trump’s pardon.
“It’s an insult to the Capitol Police, to the rule of law and to the nation,” Hemphill the New York Times. “If I accept a pardon, I’m continuing their propaganda, their gaslighting and all their falsehoods they’re putting out there about Jan. 6.”
Per the Times, Hemphill has said that she does not support Trump anymore and does not believe that the 2020 election was stolen after therapy and an experience with other Jan. 6 attackers on X. According to Hemphill, she began speaking with others at the Capitol that day on the Elon Musk-owned social media site and began questioning what others were saying about the attack there, per the Statesman.
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“They started talking about supporting people that had actually been violent, and I wasn’t happy about that,” Hemphill said, according to the outlet. “I thought we were going to stand up for anything that was government overreach or something like that, not people that are in jail for harming officers.”
“We are not victims, we were volunteers,” Hemphill told the Statesman, adding that she thinks of herself as having been in a “cult.”
“Nobody went up to them with a gun to their head and said, ‘You’re going to go break a window. You’re going to go destroy property. You’re going to push an officer.’ They had a choice,” she said.
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The Times also reports that Hemphill may face some legal challenges in rejecting the pardon. Rejecting an offer from the U.S. president for clemency is rarely ever done, and in the few cases that it has, judges have sided with the president.
Just last year, two prisoners who had their death sentences commuted by former President Joe Biden asked a judge to stop the sentence reduction, as they worried it might put their appeals process in danger, according to the Times. A District Court judge ruled against them, stating that people convicted of a crime could not reject their sentence commutation.
Hemphill told the Times that she looks back on her time as a Trump supporter and an advocate for the “Stop the Steal” movement as a lack of judgment.
“I got my critical thinking back and started doing my own research, which I’m guilty of not doing back then because they gaslight you so much,” Hemphill told the Statesman. “It’s really weird when you come out of a cult. It’s like you look back and you go, what was I thinking?”
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