AP: “In what could be the longest of legal longshots, several of those arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol are holding out hope that President Donald Trump will use some of his last hours in office to grant the rioters a full and complete pardon. Longtime advisers to Trump are urging him against such a move but the rioters contend their argument is compelling: They went to the Capitol to support Trump, and now that they are facing charges carrying up to 20 years in prison, it’s time for Trump to support them. ‘I feel like I was basically following my president. I was following what we were called to do. He asked us to fly there. He asked us to be there. So I was doing what he asked us to do,’ said Jenna Ryan, a Dallas-area real-estate agent who took a private jet to the Jan. 6 rally and ensuing riot to disrupt the certification of the election of President-elect Joe Biden. Ryan – who prosecutors say posted a now-deleted video of herself marching to the Capitol with the words, ‘We are going to fucking go in here. Life or death’ – told Dallas television station KTVT, ‘I think we all deserve a pardon. I’m facing a prison sentence. I think I do not deserve that.’

“Perhaps the most high-profile rioter, the so-called ‘QAnon Shaman’ who broke into the Senate chamber and posed at the dais with a spear, wearing a horned fur hat and animal skins, is also pleading for a pardon. Jacob Chansley’s lawyer told The Associated Press that he reached out to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about a possible pardon on behalf of the Arizona man, acknowledging it might be a reach but that there’s nothing to lose in seeking one. If Chansley is not granted a pardon, attorney Albert Watkins said, it could offer the added benefit of further awakening his client to the fact that his devotion to Trump has not been reciprocated, comparing it to being a jilted lover or even a member of a cult.”