U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, said that not one Republican in leadership in Congress or the White House has reached out to him after a man pardoned by President Donald Trump threatened to kill him.
“Not a single Republican has reached out either from the House, the Senate, or the White House, in connection with the death threat and the arrest,” Jeffries told reporters Thursday on Capitol Hill.
“But that does not surprise me in terms of the environment that we’re in,” he added.
Christopher Moynihan was taken into custody on Sunday by New York State Police after declaring in text messages that he planned to “eliminate” Jeffries during the congressman’s speaking engagement at the Economic Club of New York on Monday.
Moynihan faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat. He was pardoned in January, along with more than 1,500 others who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, to prevent the certification of Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“[Republicans] can’t justify the fact that Donald Trump pardoned hundreds of violent felons on his first day in office. People who brutally beat police officers, including seriously injuring, on these Capitol steps,” said Jeffries. “[Trump] pardons these violent felons and then unleashes them on American communities all across the country, and many of them have reoffended.”
Rather than push back against President Trump, the New York congressman said of his colleagues on the other side of the aisle: “As they always do, [they] have supported that extreme action.”
He added, “They just can’t simply justify the fact that they’ve put the safety and well-being of the American people in jeopardy by their reckless action.”
Since being pardoned, several Jan. 6 rioters have been arrested for other non-violent crimes, including one rioter who was charged with breaking and entering a Virginia home, while another was fatally shot after raising a firearm at a police officer during a traffic stop.
