President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a pardon for women’s suffrage icon Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested in 1872 for casting a ballot when women could not vote.
Trump announced the pardon at a White House event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
“She was never pardoned,” Trump said, turning to speak directly to female leaders gathered behind him. “What took so long?”
Anthony was one of the leading figures of the movement to grant women the right to vote in the United States. In 1872, she voted for the first time in Rochester, N.Y.
Anthony was arrested, found guilty by an all-male jury and ordered to pay a fine of $100 for violating the law. The voting rights activist never paid her fine.
“She was guilty for voting. And we are going to be signing a full and complete pardon. And I think that’s really fantastic,” Trump said. “She deserves it.”
When women won the right to vote in 1920 after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Anthony had been dead for over a decade. But her crucial contributions to the early days of the suffrage movement are hailed with paving the way for the expansion of the right to vote.
Trump on Monday floated the news he would be issuing a high-profile pardon this week, but denied it would be for former national security adviser Michael Flynn or Edward Snowden.
After the signing ceremony, the event quickly turned political. The president continued his attacks on voting by mail when responding to questions from the press.
“You have to get voting right,” Trump said, predicting a rigged election. “You can’t have millions and millions of ballots sent all over the place, sent to people that are dead, sent to dogs, cats.”
Trump went on to label former first lady Michelle Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention as “divisive.”
“No, she was over her head,” Trump said, turning Obama’s critique around and blasting her for taping her address.
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