Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fix Our Forests Act, and Providing for Consideration of S. Laken Riley Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing but unsurprising that House Republicans have made it their top priority in their new Congress to pass a bill, H.R. 28, designed to generate headlines rather than solve actual problems.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken on the serious flaws in this bill several times, including last night in the Rules Committee, but it is worth noting that since the House last considered this bill, it has been altered with an increasingly ironic amendment.

The amendment added mandatory imprisonment for people accused of assaulting a law enforcement officer. I say this amendment is ironic because yesterday, just hours after taking the oath of office, President Trump granted mass pardons for over 1,200 January 6 MAGA rioters who had been convicted. President Trump also ordered the dismissal of cases of hundreds more, including hundreds who assaulted police officers with bats, poles, bear spray, explosives, and other weapons.

Over 140 officers were hurt that day, with injuries including crushed spinal disks, traumatic brain injuries, heart attacks, and strokes, while they bravely defended the Capitol and those who work here. Some lost their lives or became permanently disabled after sustaining injuries and horrific trauma at the hands of fellow citizens during the MAGA attack on January 6, 2021.

In issuing those pardons, President Trump put the Presidential seal of approval on political violence, so long as it supports him, and even if it is directed against law enforcement.

Just to be clear, there was no case-by-case review of these convictions. This is a blanket pardon. We are already seeing the fruits of that incredibly dangerous act of pardoning the people who attacked the Constitution, this Capitol, and the police officers and people within it.

Among those attackers are dangerous felons who are not chastened or remorseful or reformed. They feel emboldened. One of them, Daniel Charles Ball, has just been rearrested, one day after his January 6 case was dismissed, on new weapons charges.

Another, the infamous MAGA supporter known as the QAnon Shaman, tweeted Monday: I got a pardon baby. Thank you, President Trump. Now I am going to buy some motha f'ing guns.

These pardons show an utter disrespect for law enforcement, our criminal justice system, and the rule of law. They have been rightly condemned by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, among other police organizations, but virtually every House Republican has turned their backs on our police and cowered in silence rather than denounce the shameful decision to put those criminals back on our streets.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to oppose this rule and this bill.

I seek unanimous consent to include in the Record the Joint International Association of Chiefs of Police and The Fraternal Order of Police Statement on the Recent Presidential Pardons dated January 21, 2025.

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