Brooks, who came to Washington from California to support Trump on January 6, 2021, is one of the few people who didn’t like the pardon from Trump for some reason.
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WASHINGTON – A presidential pardon?
“No thank you,” said Glenn Brooks, who was convicted in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He would rather try to clear his name in court than accept a pardon from President Donald Trump.
The Supreme Court on March 9 denied Mr. Brooks that opportunity.
A lower court had dismissed Brooks’ appeal, saying it no longer had any meaning after vacating his conviction for breaching the Capitol after President Trump last year pardoned about 1,600 people charged in the 2021 riot.
But Brooks, a home remodeling contractor and “a man of great faith,” insisted he had the right to try to prove his complete innocence.
“A forced pardon functions as a forced confession, branding the person guilty and disqualifying him from the appellate court of his choice,” Brooks’ lawyers told the Supreme Court.
His lawyers also said the issue is of “extreme national importance given the increasing use of presidential pardons in politically sensitive cases.”
The Justice Department waived Brooks’ right to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Brooks, who came to Washington from Huntington Beach, California, to support President Trump on January 6, 2021, is one of the few people who didn’t like the pardon from President Trump for some reason.
“The worst day of my life”
Pamela Hemphill, a former Trump supporter who served two months in prison for storming the Capitol, has formally rejected a presidential pardon.
But unlike Brooks, Hemphill pleaded guilty to joining a crowd of angry protesters.
The elderly man said he declined the pardon because he wanted to be honest.
“How can I live my life knowing that I have sinned and received a pardon?” she once said. “It’s like a message that that day was okay, that day was not okay. That day was the worst day of my life.”
Mr. Brooks, by contrast, is fighting four misdemeanor charges in connection with the Capitol breach and is eyeing a chance to have his conviction overturned. He argues that the government lacks sufficient evidence, particularly that Brooks knew his actions were criminal.
Members of his prayer group contacted the FBI
Mr. Brooks was arrested after fellow members of his prayer group told the FBI that Mr. Brooks had been texting photos of himself to church members inside the Capitol. Surveillance cameras showed Brooks, wearing a “Trump” knit cap, climbing through a broken window on the Senate side of the Capitol.
“While he now recognizes that it was not appropriate for him to enter the building, and certainly that it was inappropriate for him to enter through the window, at the time he was following crowds and had worked at many construction sites in the past, so walking through the window was not unusual for him,” Brooks’ attorney said in the filing.
After a jury convicted Brooks in 2024, he was sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay $500 in restitution and a $2,000 fine.
Forced out of prison for pardon he didn’t want
Brooks said he was “forcibly woken up and taken out of prison” near the end of his sentence, even though he rejected President Trump’s pardon.
“By forcing a pardon, which has historically been associated with mercy for the guilty, the government is embroiling the defendant in a narrative of guilt and cutting off the very process of correcting the record,” his lawyers told the Supreme Court.
