If Trump Cares About Fighting Antisemitism, Why Did He Pardon These Jan. 6 Insurrectionists?
Some praised Hitler. One wore an ‘Auschwitz’ hoodie. Another gave a Nazi salute. The MAGA insurrection was a festival of antisemitism.
The second Trump administration, which began with billionaire “First Buddy” Elon Musk giving two salutes applauded by Nazis at an inauguration celebration rally, would like you to believe it is fighting antisemitism by abducting international college students and putting them in prisons.
The administration would have you believe Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Mahmoud Khalil are all antisemites so dangerous they were worthy of being disappeared by secret police, put in chains and onto planes, and, in most cases, renditioned to faraway detention centers to await expulsion from the United States. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the international students, explaining his role in executing the president’s promise to deport those involved in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American” protests against Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
In a memo submitted to a court explaining why ICE agents abducted Khalil, a student protest leader at Columbia University, Rubio conceded Khalil had committed no crimes, but that allowing him to stay in America was tantamount to “condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States” that would “severely undermine” a “foreign policy objective” to combat antisemitism around the world.
Condoning antisemitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States.
Donald Trump has famously condoned two of the most disruptive and antisemitic demonstrations in recent history. In 2017, after white supremacists converged on Charlottesville, Virginia, culminating with a neo-Nazi driving his car through a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer, the president said there were “very fine people” on “both sides” of the event.
But perhaps nothing underscores the sheer bad faith of Trump’s current campaign to fight “antisemitism” or renders it one of the most odious and cynical political projects in living memory, than by briefly revisiting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol – an event he set in motion and now celebrates.
The destructive MAGA insurrection was a festival of antisemitism, animated by the ideologies of End Times Christian nationalists who support Jews insomuch as their prophesied return to Israel guarantees Christians’ rapture to heaven (and Jews’ probable descent to Hell); of the QAnon movement, which resuscitated age-old antisemitic tropes about a cabal of Jewish elites controlling the world and drinking the blood of children; and of white supremacist attendees like Nick Fuentes, who has called for the execution of “perfidious Jews.”
Moreover, on Jan. 20, 2025, just hours after being sworn into office – and a few days before he issued his executive orders claiming to combat antisemitism – Trump issued a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to the following people:
Robert Keith Packer
Robert Keith Packer stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint against him. The affidavit includes photos showing Packer in a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Camp Auschwitz” and “Work Brings Freedom,” the English translation of “Arbeit macht frei,” the slogan on the gate of the death camp where Nazis mass murdered one million Jews. On the back of Packer’s sweatshirt was the word “STAFF.”
I was unable to reach Packer for comment. His lawyer acknowledged during his sentencing hearing that his client’s apparel on Jan. 6 was “seriously offensive,” but said it was Packer’s right to wear it given his free speech protections, per NPR. The lawyer added that Packer “doesn’t see himself” as a white supremacist and was offended by anyone who labeled him as such.
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli
