South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham incited the fury of President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters after describing the president’s decision to pardon more than 1500 Jan. 6 insurrectionists as a “mistake”—with one former prisoner slamming Graham as a “Republican in name only.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Trump ally, says the White House pardoning rioters who fought with police while storming the U.S. is “sending the wrong signal.”

Trump pardoned over 1,500 people charged with attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, 34 of them from South Carolina.

Trump pardoned about 1,500 people who were charged for their actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. That number includes 172 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers. Graham, however, points out that Trump said he would grant the pardons if he was reelected.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been criticized for claiming that President Donald Trump made a “mistake” his first week in office. During an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, Graham told host Kristen Welker that Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 defendants was a “mistake.”

Senator Graham said while President Trump had the legal authority to issue the pardons, he thought it was a mistake to pardon people who "beat up a police officer violently.... because it seems to suggest that's an okay thing to do".