New Hampshire man Jason Riddle, 36, has rejected Trump’s pardon as a January 6 rioter, saying, “Trump can shove his pardon up his ass.”
“If I was one of the people who crossed the line into assaulting police officers that day, I’d probably believe I can get away with anything I want now,” he added.
“It’s almost like he was trying to say it didn’t happen. And it happened. I did those things, and they weren’t pardonable. I don’t want the pardon,” added the Navy veteran who served 90 days in jail for his misdemeanor crimes.
Riddle told investigators that during the assault on the Capitol that he found an open bottle of wine in an office refrigerator and drank it before being asked to leave by a police officer.
He told a local news station that he “watched it all unfold,” according to court documents, and described others he saw committing crimes, saying, “[t]hose psychopaths going around breaking things and hurting people can rot in hell.”
Riddle ran for New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District and failed in 2024, and said he didn’t accept the pardon to better his future job searches.
“And I did reject the pardon because I’m thinking down the road [if] an employer looks in my background, they see misdemeanors … Misdemeanors with a presidential pardon — I think that tends to draw more attention,” he said. “And I’m sure that’s fine in the MAGA world with whoever supports Trump, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if the job I’m applying to, if they like Trump.”