Former Trump supporter Pamela Hemphill refuses and returns her Jan. 6 pardon [View all]

Source: CBS News

Updated on: June 1, 2025 / 8:27 PM EDT


Amid the wave of pardons and commutations President Trump has doled out to some of his supporters and surrogates, one former MAGA loyalist in Idaho is fighting to return her pardon. Pamela Hemphill is one of the more than 1,500 people whom Mr. Trump pardoned earlier this year for their roles in the U.S. Capitol Insurrection. She has invoked help from her Republican senator to formally refuse and block the pardon Trump issued her on Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House.

Though Hemphill was a defendant of the largest criminal prosecution in American history, she is seemingly standing alone now as the only Jan. 6 defendant to refuse the clemency Mr. Trump offered. Speaking with CBS News from her home in Idaho, Hemphill said, "The pardons just contribute to their narrative, which is all lies, propaganda. We were guilty, period."

"We all know that they're gaslighting us. They are using January 6 to just continue Trump's narrative that the Justice Department was weaponized," she said. "They were not, When the FBI came to my home, oh my God, they were very professional. They treated me very good." Hemphill pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for her role in the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021.

Prosecutors argued Hemphill "was in the front of the crowd that confronted U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement officers attempting to keep the rioters behind the metal bike-rack barriers."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pamela-hemphill-trump-supporter-refuses-jan-6-pardon/