"MAGA-Grandma": Capitol stormer rejects pardon from Trump

STERN "MAGA-Grandma": Capitol stormer rejects pardon from Trump Eugen Epp • 2 hours • 2 minutes reading time Pamela Maghill was once an ardent supporter of Donald Trump and was at the forefront of the storming of the Capitol. She has since turned away from the president. Pamela Maghill was part of the angry mob that stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. The 71-year-old was a fanatical supporter of Donald Trump and well known in "Make America Great Again" circles: her nickname was "MAGA-Grandma". In 2022, she was sentenced to 60 days in prison, three years probation and $500 in damages for her involvement in the storming of the Capitol. Donald Trump is now president again and in the first moments of his term in office he issued comprehensive pardons for all those convicted in connection with January 6. This also applies to Pamela Maghill – but she doesn't want that at all: she rejects the pardon. She has fundamentally changed her views and is reformed. Today, Maghill sees the storming of the Capitol as a serious mistake. Ex-Trump supporter: "We broke the law" "We were wrong that day," she told the BBC in retrospect. "We broke the law." That is why the convictions were right, and there should be no pardons now. "Accepting a pardon would be an insult to the Capitol police, the rule of law and our nation," Maghill explained. The Trump administration is trying to "rewrite history." If it were to accept a pardon, it would "contribute to this narrative." The former counselor for drug and alcohol addicts pleaded guilty in court. While Donald Trump believes that many of the 1,500 convicted people "did nothing wrong," Pamela Maghill now has clear words for what happened: "It was an uprising, a riot." A therapist helped her to recognize her role in it and to turn away from the MAGA movement. Donald Trump supporters are "a cult" Hemphill fell into the clutches of Trump supporters out of loneliness, as she told "Spiegel" last year. Her difficult childhood also played a role. The woman from South Carolina first came into contact with the "MAGA Girls," a group of right-wing women. Then she joined the anti-state movement "People's Rights" of the right-wing activist Ammon Bundy. Her streams of right-wing rallies were a success on social media, and about the storming of the Capitol, Hemphill wrote on Facebook: "The planned Trump rally on January 6th will not be fun, it is a war!" The 71-year-old dropout no longer wants to have anything to do with Donald Trump and his followers. "Today I know that it is a cult," she says. "And I was part of this cult."