Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are urging the Justice Department to abandon arguments that the government must refund thousands of dollars in restitution payments to members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We condemn the Justice Department’s position that the federal government should financially reward January 6 insurrectionists who ransacked the Capitol, attacked law enforcement officers, and threatened the lives of those who serve here,” the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“The roughly $400,000 received in restitution is little justice for the $3 million’s worth of damage done to the Capitol, the injuries sustained by Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers serving on that day, and the terror inflicted on those trapped inside during the attack,” they wrote. “To take the position that January 6 insurrectionists should now receive refunds is unacceptable.”
The letter is led by Sens. Alex Padilla of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Judiciary Democrat. Sens. Peter Welch of Vermont, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Adam Schiff of California, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Jeff Merkley of Oregon signed on as well.
It comes weeks after POLITICO reported that federal prosecutors had begun advocating for the return of restitution payments made by Jan. 6 defendants whose convictions were abandoned shortly after President Donald Trump issued blanket clemency for those who attacked the Capitol.
Those refunds, the prosecutors said, should go to defendants whose cases were on appeal at the time of Trump’s pardons. That’s because criminal convictions are not technically final until appeals are concluded — and once the Trump administration abandoned their cases, the appeals became moot.
