WASHINGTON — About two months after President Donald Trump pardoned more than 1,500 defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, the president said there could be a compensation fund for convicted and suspected rioters who lost jobs and income because of their cases. 

What You Need To Know

  • There could be a compensation fund for the Jan. 6 rioters, President Donald Trump said Tuesday

  • “A lot of people that are in government now talk about it because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people,” Trump told Newmax's Greg Kelly

  • The comment comes about two months after Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people convicted of or charged in the Capitol riot

  • Many of the rioters were convicted of assault, trespassing, civil disorder, disrupting Congress, theft, weapons offenses or other charges for their actions on Jan. 6

“A lot of people that are in government now talk about it because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people,” Trump told Greg Kelly during an interview on his Newsmax show Tuesday night. 

“These people are incredible people. They were treated so unfairly, so horribly,” the president said, adding that he believes the rioters who stormed the Capitol were “patriots.”

On Jan. 20, Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 people who were convicted of or charged with assault, trespassing, civil disorder, disrupting Congress, theft, weapons offenses or other crimes related to Jan. 6.

The Trump supporters marched to the Capitol during a joint session of Congress, where lawmakers were certifying the electoral votes confirming Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election. 

About 140 police officers were injured in clashes with rioters, and lawmakers were rushed to secure locations. Nine people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 died that day or in the days or weeks that followed, although it’s a point of debate whether the riot was directly responsible for the vast majority of those deaths.

In a post on X on Wednesday morning, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the House committee that investigated Jan. 6 and the events leading up to it, wrote: "Trump, do you want to set up a compensation fund for the 140 sworn police officers wounded by your J6 'patriots' too? Or is it just the criminals you’re proposing to pay reparations? Why should the taxpayers pay for the upkeep of your mercenary gang?"

Trump also told Newsmax he'd look into a lawsuit filed by the family of Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who was fatally shot by a police officer as she tried to climb through a broken window at the Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as the fact that the officer was cleared in the shooting and promoted in 2023.

"I'm a big fan of Ashli Babbitt," he said. "And Ashli Babbitt was a really good person who was a big MAGA fan, Trump fan. And she was innocently standing there."

The suggestion of a compensation fund comes as the Trump administration is aggressively targeting what it sees as excessive government spending.