President Joe Biden ought to beat Donald Trump to the punch and pardon the jailed rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol four years ago today protesting the results of the 2020 election.

It would burnish his legacy, such as it is.

Incoming President Donald Trump is going to pardon or commute their sentences anyway.

Biden could do it first and prove what a magnanimous, all forgiving seeker of justice that he is.

Of the 1500 people who have been charged with various crimes during the storming of the Capitol, 1200 have pled guilty or were convicted, with sentences ranging from probation to 22 years in prison.

Most of the rioters are average working-class people who Biden liked to bond with, or pretended to, over the years.

Were they wrong to storm the Capitol? Of course.

Were they really trying to overthrow the government? Of course not.

It was obvious that the rioters were stirred up by President Donald Trump who loudly resented his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, even though Trump urged his crowd of supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

The only person killed was unarmed Ashli Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran who was shot by a Capitol Police officer under questionable circumstances.

Biden, in pardoning the rioters, could say, as he did when he pardoned his deadbeat son Hunter, who was convicted on weapons and tax charges: “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

The way the outgoing president is giving out pardons and commutations to mass murderers and child rapists (37 on death row) these days, this one ought to be a no brainer, so to speak.

Biden could also provide pre-emptive pardons to the 26 FBI paid confidential informants (spies) who mingled with the rioters and possibly participated in or encouraged the rioting.

The FBI, which everybody believes, said however that none of their informants were encouraged to break the law or encourage others to committee acts of violence.

If they did so, they apparently did it on their own.

Look at it this way, if Biden could commute the long drug sentences of 1500 individuals placed in home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, which he did, he surely can pardon or commute the sentences of the 1500 January 6 rioters.

In showing mercy to the rioters, Biden could issue the same press release he issued when he commuted the sentences of the druggies.

He said then, “America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances.” That would be like the second chance he gave to his son Hunter.

“As president,” Biden said, “I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially convicted of drug offenses.”

Biden should show the same mercy to the rioters as he did to his son, or to the 1500 people convicted of drug offenses.

Or, to put it another way, if Biden can commute the death sentences of 37 death row prisoners—the dregs of society—convicted of crimes like killing cops, women and children, then surely he can pardon or commute the sentences of the January 6 rioters.

He could do it today, the fourth anniversary of the riot.

It would do much to heal the nation, add to his legacy, and add a spring to his step as he walks out the door.

And, as he would say, it is the right thing to do.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

President Joe Biden speaks before a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Friday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)