In the day since President Trump's sweeping clemency of January 6th rioters, the federal courts

have been busy processing the dismissals, but the judges who've spent years overseeing the

hundreds of trials are not hiding their frustration. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkin, who

sentenced dozens of defendants and also oversaw President Trump's election interference case,

criticized the decision in an order saying, quote,

no pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.

It cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake.

While fellow U.S. District Judge Barrel Howl wrote, quote,

No national injustice occurred here. Charges were fully supported by evidence. This court cannot

let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement. The comments are some of the

first made by judges following the president's decision to grant clemency

to more than 1,500 people who were charged for the January 6th attack. For perspective now, we turn

to John Jones. He's a retired federal judge who was appointed by President George W. Bush and now

serves as the president of Dickinson College. Thanks for being with us.

Jeff, good to be with you. You spent nearly two decades on the federal bench. How do you perceive the impact of these pardons on the judiciary's role in upholding the rule of law and ensuring

accountability for actions that undermine democratic institutions? Well, Bravo, Jeff, to my former colleagues

on the D.C. bench because judges are not allowed under the Code of Conduct to make what are called

extrajudicial statements about cases. In other words, Judge Chutkin and Judge Hal can't call a press

conference. They shouldn't and make statements, but they let their orders do the talking for them.

And you can read directly from their orders and tell that they're pretty anguished about the fact that these folks were pardoned.

They know these cases. They understand what happened in these cases. In many cases, they sentence these people,

and they're intimately familiar with the facts. And they're simply, by their words, not accepting a false narrative that these were, and I'm

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