Yes, every president has pardons that are arguable (Biden pardoning his son, for example). And anyone pardoned has been found guilty of a crime, by definition. But not all crimes are equal.
Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal.
Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) is not the same thing as pardoning the head of the worlds biggest guns and drugs marketplace. Even if he did not kill anyone himself (it was proven, just to a lesser extent, but fine). Those drugs and guns most definitely did kill people.
Because you’re political view of it is indeed that they were having an insurrection. To the right they were just having a protest that got violent but not anymore violent than any of the others throughout the country that year.
> Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did)
You mean he pardoned a bunch of drug dealers who will now go back selling drugs to children?
Do you see the issue here? The justice system is to try to cut through the bias and selectively choosing which part of the justice outcomes to ignore is going to be extremely political.
Anything clearly obvious is usually resolved by higher courts so the pardons are completely for when the president just decides “fuck the law in this particular way”.
But, as usual, this is a case of false equivalency.
Can we agree that when violence results in penetration of the national seat of power, during the transfer of power, that changes from "civil unrest" to "insurrection"?
This is like saying "but your honor, fights happen all the time", when trying to defend yourself after robbing a bank.
I won't even go into the fact that there is ample evidence that it did not "just got violent". Even if not everyone came there to storm the senate, there is ample videographic proof of people arriving geared up and organized.
Now. Regarding those "bunch of drug dealers". In fact, Biden commuted the sentence of 1500 non-violent offenders so that their punishment was in line with the punishment they would receive today. He pardoned 49 people that mostly have already purged their sentence and today are productive members of society (and there were being kept back by their record)
Really. Spend two minutes reading through the list of pardons, and after reading about the lives of these people, then tell me if you still think those people will sell drugs to children.