2 weeks ago
14
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
The extraordinary pardons and commutations extended to those who committed both violent and nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.
- Published Jan. 20, 2025Updated Jan. 21, 2025, 9:40 a.m. ET
President Donald J. Trump, in one of his first official acts, issued a sweeping grant of clemency on Monday to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, issuing pardons to most of the defendants and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Mr. Trump’s moves amounted to an extraordinary reversal for rioters accused of both low-level, nonviolent offenses and for those who had assaulted police officers.
And they effectively erased years of efforts by federal investigators to seek accountability for the mob assault on the peaceful transfer of presidential power after Mr. Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. As part of his pardon order, Mr. Trump also directed the Justice Department to dismiss “all pending indictments” that remained against people facing charges for Jan. 6.
Sitting in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said he hoped that many of the defendants could be released from prison as early as tonight.
“They’ve already been in jail for a long time,” he said. “These people have been destroyed.”
The pardons Mr. Trump issued — “full, complete and unconditional,” he wrote — will touch the lives of about 1,000 defendants accused of misdemeanors like disorderly conduct, breaching the Capitol’s restricted grounds and trespassing at the building. Many of these rioters have served only days, weeks or months in prison — if any time at all.
The pardons will also wipe the slate clean for violent offenders who went after the police on Jan. 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade.
