Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks during the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago.
AP/Aug. 20, 2024

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) has directed the state’s hiring authority to block all those who participated in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from state employment.

The order would apply to more than 50 people from Illinois who were given pardons or commutations by President Donald Trump in one of the earliest acts of his second term and marks the latest effort by the blue state governor to push back against Trump.

In a letter addressed to Raven A. DeVaughn, director of the Department of Central Management Services, which is responsible for hiring state personnel, Pritzker said people who participated in the attack should be disqualified from state employment. The governor called their behavior “infamous and disgraceful conduct that is antithetical to the mission of the State.”

“One of my most important duties as Governor is protecting public safety in the State of Illinois,” he said in the Thursday letter. “No one who attempts to overthrow a government should serve in government.”

On his first day in office, Trump granted a “complete and unconditional pardon” to nearly all Jan. 6 defendants. He commuted the sentences of the remaining 14, who are members of the right-wing Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups. Oath Keepers’ leader Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys former chairman Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio are among the 14 rioters who had their sentences commuted. Trump also ordered his attorney general to dismiss all pending indictments.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, 43 of the 53 defendants from Illinois had been convicted and sentenced by the time Trump took office on Jan. 20. They include former Chicago police officer Karol J. Chwiesiuk, whose lawyer called the Justice Department’s four-year investigation into the attack “a witch hunt.”

“It was a witch hunt,” Nishay Sanan told the Chicago Sun-Times last month. “This was the Democrats’ attempt to go after Trump and his supporters.”

According to court documents, Chwiesiuk said he was traveling to Washington “to save the nation.”

Chwiesiuk was convicted on four misdemeanor charges, including entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

He received three years of probation with 90 days of home detention.

Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, was strongly considered for Kamala Harris’ running mate over the summer and is viewed as a possible contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination. An outspoken critic of Trump going back to his first term, Pritzker has continued to take shots at the president as the administration began implementing its agenda.

On Saturday, he attacked Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, telling MSNBC that “the people of Illinois, the people of the United States are going to pay the price for what Donald Trump is doing.”

Pritzker has also slammed Trump’s leadership and rejected the administration’s sweeping deportation efforts, telling CNN that he’s fine with deporting violent criminals, but he wouldn’t order Illinois resources to help federal officials pursue “law-abiding” migrants “who may have been here for a decade.”