Pamela Hemphill — a self-described “ex-MAGA Granny” who was convicted for her role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack — said Tuesday that she declined President Donald Trump’s pardon because she didn’t want to be part of his “narrative.”
Hemphill — in an interview with CNN’s Pamela Brown — pointed to Trump’s talk of a “weaponization” of the Justice Department, adding that other convicted rioters have since tagged along and claimed they weren’t allowed due process.
“And it’s all a lie,” said Hemphill, who spent two months in a federal prison and remains on probation for participating in the riot. She’s one of 1,500 people the president pardoned on his first day in office for their roles in the attack.
Among those who received pardons were hundreds of rioters convicted of assaulting officers, roughly 1,000 nonviolent offenders and around 200 people accused of assaulting police. Their cases are pending. A number of those pardoned have since been rearrested.
Hemphill has distanced herself from her unofficial “MAGA” moniker and hit back at Trump in 2023 for “using” her cancer battle in a Truth Social post.
On Tuesday, she emphasized that she had due process and was ultimately “guilty” of her crimes.
“I’m not going to be a part of Trump’s lying narrative and plus, you know, it’d be a slap [to] the Capitol police officers, the rule of law,” she said. “No, I couldn’t dare live with myself taking a pardon. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”
Hemphill — when asked how she’s “done a 180” since the insurrection — said she noticed social media users in a Jan. 6 group on X, formerly Twitter, “playing the victim role” and felt like people had “gaslighted” her using disinformation.
“So, I just discovered one lie after another and I thought ‘this narrative is false,’” said Hemphill, noting that she started a separate J6 “gaslighting” group where she uncovered a number of claims she later learned to be false.
“I thought, ‘You know, this is insane. I’m done. I’m done with these people. And I’m going to do my own research.’”
She said she “didn’t realize a president could ever become a cult leader” and realized through leading cult expert Steven Hassan’s 2019 book on Trump that she was in a cult.
Hemphill stressed that there was “nothing I could lose” by being honest and pushing back against Trump.
“It doesn’t matter. The cost of continuing to lie or be dishonest with yourself, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth — anything they want to do to me, it’s OK. I’m not worried about nothing,” she said.
