President Donald Trump took the oath of office in the United States Capitol in Washington, DC, where a mob of his supporters had rampaged on January 6, 2021, during the last presidential handover of power.
Hours after being sworn in on Monday, Trump pardoned about 1,500 of those supporters, upending the largest prosecution in the history of the US Department of Justice.
With the stroke of his pen, he freed from prison people caught on camera viciously attacking police as well as leaders of far-right groups convicted of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Let’s take a look back at January 6 and who was pardoned by Trump this week:
What happened on January 6, 2021?
Thousands of people attacked the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results, spurred on by Trump’s false claims that the election had been “rigged” against him.
Just before the riot, the Republican incumbent held a rally in Washington, DC, during which he railed against the election results and urged his supporters to “fight like hell”.
More than 2,000 people entered the Capitol building, smashing windows, ransacking offices, defecating in public spaces and searching for members of Congress.
The assault was ultimately unsuccessful, but it did set off alarm bells about the stability of US democracy and the growing influence of anti-democratic elements within the Republican Party.
About 1,500 people were arrested for their involvement in the Capitol attack, and prison sentences were handed down in the years that followed.
After an 18-month investigation, a US congressional committee released a nearly 850-page report in December 2022 after the panel recommended criminal charges against Trump himself for his role in the attack.
“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him,” the panel said.
Who has Trump pardoned?
All but a handful of those jailed in relation to the January 6 riots have been granted “a full, complete and unconditional pardon”, according to a proclamation signed by Trump.
“I further direct the Attorney General to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” it said.
The most prominent figures jailed for their actions on January 6, 2021, include key members of the right-wing groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in September 2023 for his role in the riot, is among those who have been pardoned. His sentence was the longest handed down in relation to the attack. In his decision, US District Judge Timothy Kelly called Tarrio “the ultimate leader” of the January 6 conspiracy.
Another figure from the riot who has been pardoned is “QAnon Shaman” Jake Angeli-Chansley, the rioter nicknamed for his horned headdress, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison. He took to X to announce the news: “I JUST GOT THE NEWS FROM MY LAWYER… I GOT A PARDON BABY!” he declared. “I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!”
Among the pardoned were also more than 300 people who pleaded guilty to either assaulting or obstructing law enforcement, including 69 who admitted to assaulting police with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
Nearly 300 rioters had links to 46 far-right groups or movements, according to a study from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a University of Maryland-based network of scholars that tracks and analyses such violent incidents.
Many of the attacks were captured on surveillance or body camera footage that showed rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police as officers desperately fought to turn back the angry crowd.
Who has not received a full pardon?
In the proclamation published on the White House website, Trump released but did not fully pardon 14 leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who were serving long prison sentences. Their convictions will remain on record.
Those whose sentences were commuted only are:
- Stewart Rhodes: founder of the Oath Keepers, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for organising armed members to storm the Capitol
- Kelly Meggs: the leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, also sentenced for seditious conspiracy
- Kenneth Harrelson: an Oath Keepers member found guilty of “obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging duties and tampering with documents or proceedings”
- Thomas Caldwell: an Oath Keepers associate and US navy veteran who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy for aiding the planning of the riot
- Jessica Watkins: an Oath Keepers member and army veteran who was convicted of organising and leading a group into the Capitol and sentenced to six years in prison
- Roberto Minuta: an Oath Keepers member sentenced to 36 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release for seditious conspiracy and other charges
- Edward Vallejo: an affiliate of the Oath Keepers but not a member who was serving 36 months in prison followed by 36 months of supervised release for seditious conspiracy
- David Moerschel: an Oath Keepers member sentenced to 36 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release for seditious conspiracy and other charges
- Joseph Hackett: an Oath Keepers member sentenced to 42 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release for seditious conspiracy
- Ethan Nordean: prominent Proud Boys member known as the group’s “war general”, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release for multiple felony charges
- Joseph Biggs: Proud Boys organiser sentenced to 17 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release for seditious conspiracy and other charges
- Zachary Rehl: former Proud Boys chapter president who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for leading the group’s actions and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release
- Dominic Pezzola: a Proud Boys member known for using a stolen police riot shield to smash Capitol windows who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 36 months of supervised release
- Jeremy Bertino: a former Proud Boys member who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and cooperated with investigators
What has been the reaction to Trump’s pardons?
As with all things tied to Trump, many of the reactions to his pardons fell along party lines.
The White House proclamation announcing the pardons stated the action “ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation”.
Trump defended the pardons on Tuesday, saying the defendants had “already served years in prison” in conditions the president described as “disgusting” and “inhumane”.
Many Trump supporters praised the pardons in right-wing online forums. Some threatened those who had supported the prosecutions.
On the pro-Trump website, Patriots.Win, at least two dozen people expressed hopes for executions of Democrats, judges or law enforcement linked to the January 6 cases. They called for jurists or police to be hanged, “pummelled to death”, “ground up in wood chippers” or “thrown from helicopters”.
“Gather the entire federal judiciary into a stadium. Then have them listen and watch while the judges are beaten to death,” one wrote. “Cut their heads off and put them on pikes outside” the Justice Department.
Several experts said the reversal for rioters who committed both violent and nonviolent crimes, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy, is likely to embolden the Proud Boys and other far-right groups such as white supremacists who have openly called for political violence.
“They are going to feel they can do whatever they want,” Julie Farnam, who was the assistant director of intelligence for the US Capitol Police during the January 6 riots, said of far-right groups.
“They’ll feel like they can because there is no leadership in the United States that tries to stop it,” said Farnam, who now runs a private investigative agency.
Two police officers who were beaten while trying to hold off the crowd said the pardons were a chilling sign that loyalty to Trump is now more important than the rule of law.
“It’s outrageous,” former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone told the Reuters news agency. Fanone suffered a heart attack and a brain injury when he was beaten, sprayed with chemical irritants and shocked with a stun gun during the violence on January 6.
Fanone, 44, who served 20 years as a police officer, said the pardons would inspire other supporters to commit violence “because they believe Donald Trump will grant them a pardon. And why wouldn’t they believe that?”
What do the pardoned prisoners say?
After their release on Tuesday from federal custody, Rhodes and other January 6 defendants gathered in frigid temperatures outside the District of Columbia jail, where a handful of defendants remained behind bars. Some supporters of the Capitol rioters danced while songs like Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy played on a loudspeaker.
Rhodes continued to push the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and he claimed Capitol riot defendants had been denied a fair trial in Washington, DC. Rhodes said he had “full faith” all along that Trump was going to offer clemency to the January 6 defendants.
Angeli-Chansley took to the social media platform X to celebrate after the pardons: “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!”
Kevin Loftus was sentenced in December to six months behind bars for violating the terms of his probation after trying to fly overseas to join the Russian military and fight against Ukraine. He said he was going to have the pardon from Trump framed.
“I’m just a working man, dude. People like us don’t get presidential pardons,” he said.
