Trump issues sweeping pardons for Jan. 6 rioters

President Donald Trump pardoned about 1,500 people who stormed the Capitol in his name on Jan. 6, 2021, instantly laying waste to the Justice Department’s four-year drive to punish the first disruption of the transfer of power in American history.

The sweeping grant of clemency includes “full, complete and unconditional” pardons for some of the most notorious participants in the attack, including hundreds convicted of assaulting police, carrying firearms, destroying property or otherwise contributing to the violent rampage. Trump also ordered his Justice Department to shut down hundreds of pending Jan. 6 prosecutions, including many for violent crimes.

Among those freed from jail with a stroke of Trump’s pen: Enrique Tarrio, the former national leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for a seditious conspiracy related to the attack; Guy Reffitt, who carried a firearm during a standoff with police that helped facilitate the mob’s approach to the Capitol; and Ryan Samsel, the first rioter to breach police lines who was facing a long list of assault charges.

Trump’s move largely erases the prosecutions that have crammed Washington’s federal courthouse and featured prominently in national politics since Trump attempted to derail Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Trump had repeatedly promised during the 2024 campaign to pardon many Jan. 6 defendants, but until Monday night, it was unclear just how far he would go. Some political allies and even a federal judge he appointed had urged him to refrain from “blanket’ pardons of those who stormed the Capitol. And Vice President JD Vance said this month that people who engaged in violence “obviously” should not be pardoned.

But only the president, Trump’s allies noted, gets to decide who receives clemency, and Trump had other ideas.

“These people have been destroyed,” Trump said as he signed the pardons Monday night. “What they’ve done to these people has been outrageous.”

Trump asked the Bureau of Prisons to facilitate the release of incarcerated defendants immediately.

The Justice Department charged about 1,600 perpetrators for their role in the mob, including 600 accused of assaulting or impeding police during the chaos. About 1,100 of them pleaded guilty or were found guilty at trial. The other roughly 500 cases were still pending until Trump’s clemency.

Those pardoned include Julian Khater, who pepper-sprayed Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick in the face (Sicknick died a day later from what a medical examiner said was natural causes); Patrick McCaughey, who helped crush D.C. police officer Daniel Hodges in a Capitol doorway; and Jake Lang, a rioter charged with numerous assault counts, including attacking police officers with a bat.

Fourteen people received commutations instead of full pardons. A commutation is a lesser form of clemency that means those individuals will be released from prison immediately, but — at least for now — they will continue to have felony convictions on their records.

Despite the pardon for Tarrio, Trump opted only to commute the sentence of others who were convicted of seditious conspiracy — including Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the anti-government Oath Keepers.

The federal judge who sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison recently said the thought of him being released was “frightening.”

Others whose sentences were commuted include Dominic Pezzola, a New York Proud Boy who led the crowd into the Capitol when he shattered a Senate-wing window and was serving a 10-year sentence; Ethan Nordean and Joe Biggs, who led hundreds of Proud Boys on a march from the Washington Monument to the Capitol, where they helped ignite breaches of numerous police lines; and some of Rhodes’ top Oath Keepers allies.

Trump also directed his Justice Department to abruptly drop the 470 ongoing criminal cases against Jan. 6 defendants — including hundreds facing assault charges. The president told prosecutors to request that the cases be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning they could not be refiled.

Some of those cases had already netted guilty pleas, and the defendants were awaiting sentences.

About 700 defendants had already completed their jail sentences or were never sentenced to prison at all.

The effects of the mass clemency by Trump are likely to cascade through the federal courthouse in Washington, where prosecutors have churned through Jan. 6 cases daily for the past four years. Two felony cases were expected to reach jury verdicts this week. Other defendants began asking judges Monday night to dismiss their cases even before Trump signed the pardon paperwork.