Left: Pam Hemphill announces on Facebook that she is going to Washington DC on Jan. 6. Right: Then former President Donald Trump after appearing before the Brotherhood of International Teamsters.
“You know that everybody there was guilty. I couldn’t live with myself. I have to be right with me. And with God.”
Jun 2nd, 2025, 11:40 am
An Idaho woman who was found guilty of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and encouraging others to do the same is now working to ensure that she is not among the more than 1,500 rioters to be pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Pamela Hemphill, who was 69 years old in 2022 when she was sentenced to two months in jail for her role in the attack, is actively refusing the president’s clemency, claiming that Trump’s mass pardons and commutations are part of his larger effort to push false claims about the crimes committed by his followers that day.
“The pardons just contribute to their narrative, which is all lies. Propaganda. We were guilty, period,” Hemphill said in a recent interview with CBS News.
“We all know that they’re gaslighting us,” she said. “They are using January 6 to just continue Trump’s narrative that the Justice Department was weaponized. They were not, When the FBI came to my home, oh my God, they were very professional. They treated me very good.”
Hemphill in January 2021, flew to Washington, D.C., from Idaho to support Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, court documents show
Prosecutors said she pushed through police lines three different times as the crowd outside the Capitol grew increasingly violent. She also encouraged her fellow rioters to push their way inside the building, and she was later seen inside the Rotunda itself.
Additionally, when police offered to help Hemphill, prosecutors said she “needlessly” exaggerated her injuries in an effort to distract officers from more violent protesters.
Hemphill pleaded guilty in January 2022 to one count of demonstrating, picketing, or parading in a Capitol building — a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, a fine up to $5,000 and up to five years of probation. Hemphill requested a sentence of probation only, while prosecutors suggested that she serve at least 60 days in jail, three years of probation and 60 hours of community service.
Since storming that Capitol, Hemphill says she has realized that Trump’s claims about winning the 2020 election were not true and regrets getting caught up in the false narrative, referring to the MAGA movement as a “cult” and the president as “felon Trump” who should be blamed for what happened.
“How could you sleep at night taking a pardon when you know you were guilty?” she told CBS. “You know that everybody there was guilty. I couldn’t live with myself. I have to be right with me. And with God.”
According to CBS News, Idaho Sen. James Risch, a Republican, has been assisting Hemphill in her effort to formally refuse the pardon.
Though his office told the network that it “cannot disclose details” about Hemphill’s case due to “privacy concerns,” records reportedly show that the Office of the Pardon Attorney wrote the senator about the pardon in April stating, in part, that “Hemphill’s non-acceptance is noted.” The correspondence reportedly also noted that Hemphill would not receive a formal certificate of her pardon.
Asked what she thinks will happen if the president hears about her position, Hemphill said Trump would probably call her “an ungrateful lady” and will probably tell government officials to “give her the worst you can give her.”
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