The Colorado Senate voted along party lines Monday to approve a resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s pardons of those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Senate Joint Resolution 25-6, sponsored by Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat, and Sen. Matt Ball, a Denver Democrat, condemns the pardons as well as the firing of FBI agents assigned to insurrection-related cases who “committed their careers to the defense of our nation and its sovereignty.”
Nearly 1,600 people were federally charged in connection with the attack, which was fueled by Trump’s baseless denial of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. Dozens of injuries, four rioter deaths and five police officer deaths are attributed to the attack.
Almost 30 people with connections to Colorado were charged for actions related to the attack.
In asking for bipartisan support of the resolution, Hinrichsen said on the Senate floor he has heard the “mental contortions” used to justify the insurrection and the pardons, and that they are all “rooted in lies.”
Hinrichsen, an Army veteran, said a friend he served with texted him after Trump announced his pardons and said it’s “pretty obvious that I sacrificed my youth and my friends sacrificed their lives for a lot of Americans who are truly and unequivocally unworthy of those sacrifices.”
“If we cannot, regardless of party, muster the courage to speak with truth about the greatest assault on this Constitution from within our own citizenry in 160 years, or to condemn the aid and comfort now given to its enemies who sought to render the sacrifices of those who gave their lives in its defense to have been in vain, then any words of solemnity for that sacrifice are nothing but hollow, insulting utterances,” Hinrichsen said. “I have no desire to sit and smile politely for such a performance.”
The resolution passed 21-12, with all Republicans voting against it.
Sen. Mark Baisley, a Woodland Park Republican, said he finds it “shameful” that a resolution would be used in a “political manner.”
The Colorado House of Representatives will likely vote on the resolution this week.
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