President Donald Trump said his administration was considering whether to establish a compensation fund for pardoned rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop certification of the election that he lost to former President Joseph. R. Biden Jr.
In an interview with the conservative television station Newsmax, President Trump said on Tuesday that people in his administration were discussing the possibility of paying restitution to the rioters.
Asked whether he was considering some kind of “compensation fund” because the rioters lost wages and other opportunities while they were prosecuted, Mr. Trump said “there’s a lot of talk about that,” adding that “people in government really liked that group of people.”
“They were patriots as far as I was concerned,” Mr. Trump said. “I talk about them a lot. They were treated very unfairly.”