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Friday, February 28, 2025

Trump grants sweeping pardon of January 6 defendants

by

37 days ago
20250121
Photo: President Donald Trump pardons more than 1,500 of his supporters charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including people who assaulted police, using his clemency powers on his first day in office.

Photo: President Donald Trump pardons more than 1,500 of his supporters charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including people who assaulted police, using his clemency powers on his first day in office.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Mon­day par­doned, com­mut­ed the prison sen­tences or vowed to dis­miss the cas­es of all of the 1,500-plus peo­ple charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capi­tol ri­ot, in­clud­ing peo­ple con­vict­ed of as­sault­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, us­ing his clemen­cy pow­ers on his first day back in of­fice to un­do the mas­sive pros­e­cu­tion of the un­prece­dent­ed as­sault on the seat of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy.

Trump’s ac­tion, just hours af­ter his re­turn to the White House, paves the way for the re­lease from prison of peo­ple found guilty of vi­o­lent at­tacks on po­lice, as well as lead­ers of far-right ex­trem­ist groups con­vict­ed of failed plots to keep the Re­pub­li­can in pow­er af­ter he lost the 2020 elec­tion to for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

The par­dons are a cul­mi­na­tion of Trump’s years­long cam­paign to rewrite the his­to­ry of the Jan. 6 at­tack that left more than 100 po­lice of­fi­cers in­jured as the an­gry mob of Trump sup­port­ers — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — over­whelmed law en­force­ment, shat­tered win­dows and sent law­mak­ers and aides run­ning in­to hid­ing. While par­dons were ex­pect­ed, the speed and the scope of the clemen­cy amount­ed to a stun­ning dis­man­tling of the Jus­tice De­part­ment’s ef­fort to hold par­tic­i­pants ac­count­able over what has been de­scribed as one of the dark­est days in the coun­try’s his­to­ry.

Trump al­so or­dered the at­tor­ney gen­er­al to seek the dis­missal of rough­ly 450 cas­es that are still pend­ing be­fore judges stem­ming from the largest in­ves­ti­ga­tion in Jus­tice De­part­ment his­to­ry.

Cast­ing the ri­ot­ers as “pa­tri­ots” and “hostages,” Trump has claimed they were un­fair­ly treat­ed by the Jus­tice De­part­ment that al­so charged him with fed­er­al crimes in two cas­es he con­tends were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. Trump said the par­dons will end “a grave na­tion­al in­jus­tice that has been per­pe­trat­ed up­on the Amer­i­can peo­ple over the last four years” and be­gin “a process of na­tion­al rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.”

The par­dons were met with ela­tion from Trump sup­port­ers and lawyers for the Jan. 6 de­fen­dants. Trump sup­port­ers gath­ered late Mon­day in the cold out­side the Wash­ing­ton jail, where more than a dozen de­fen­dants were be­ing held be­fore the par­dons.

“We are deeply thank­ful for Pres­i­dent Trump for his ac­tions to­day,” said James Lee Bright, an at­tor­ney who rep­re­sent­ed Oath Keep­ers founder Stew­art Rhodes, who was serv­ing an 18-year prison sen­tence af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of sedi­tious con­spir­a­cy and oth­er crimes.

It’s un­clear how quick­ly the de­fen­dants may be re­leased from prison. An at­tor­ney for En­rique Tar­rio, the for­mer Proud Boys na­tion­al chair­man who was sen­tenced to 22 years in prison for sedi­tious con­spir­a­cy, said he ex­pect­ed his client to be re­leased from prison Mon­day night.

“This marks a piv­otal mo­ment in our client’s life, and it sym­bol­izes a turn­ing point for our na­tion,” at­tor­ney Nay­ib Has­san said in a state­ment. “We are op­ti­mistic for the fu­ture, as we now turn the page on this chap­ter, em­brac­ing new pos­si­bil­i­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

De­moc­rats slammed the move to ex­tend the par­dons to vi­o­lent ri­ot­ers, many of whose crimes were cap­tured on cam­era and broad­cast on live TV. For­mer House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi called it “an out­ra­geous in­sult to our jus­tice sys­tem and the he­roes who suf­fered phys­i­cal scars and emo­tion­al trau­ma as they pro­tect­ed the Capi­tol, the Con­gress and the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

“Don­ald Trump is ush­er­ing in a Gold­en Age for peo­ple that break the law and at­tempt to over­throw the gov­ern­ment,” Sen­ate De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Chuck Schumer said in an emailed state­ment.

For­mer Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice Of­fi­cer Michael Fanone, who lost con­scious­ness and suf­fered a heart at­tack af­ter a ri­ot­er shocked him with a stun gun, ap­peared tak­en aback to learn from an As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porter that those who as­sault­ed po­lice of­fi­cers are among the par­don re­cip­i­ents.

“This is what the Amer­i­can peo­ple vot­ed for,” he said. “How do you re­act to some­thing like that?”

Fanone said he has spent the past four years wor­ried about his safe­ty and the well-be­ing of his fam­i­ly. Par­don­ing his as­sailants on­ly com­pounds his fears, he said.

“I think they’re cow­ards,” he said. “Their strength was in their num­bers and the mob men­tal­i­ty. And as in­di­vid­u­als, they are who they are.”

Trump had sug­gest­ed in the weeks lead­ing up to his re­turn to the White House that in­stead of blan­ket par­dons, he would look at the Jan. 6 de­fen­dants on a case-by-case ba­sis. And Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance had said just days ago that peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for the vi­o­lence dur­ing the Capi­tol ri­ot “ob­vi­ous­ly” should not be par­doned.

Four­teen de­fen­dants, in­clud­ing sev­er­al con­vict­ed of sedi­tious con­spir­a­cy, had their sen­tences com­mut­ed, while the rest of those found guilty of Jan. 6 crimes were grant­ed “full, com­plete and un­con­di­tion­al” par­dons.

The par­dons come weeks af­ter the Jus­tice De­part­ment aban­doned its two fed­er­al crim­i­nal cas­es against Trump, cit­ing its pol­i­cy against pros­e­cut­ing sit­ting pres­i­dents. Had Trump lost the 2024 elec­tion, he may have ul­ti­mate­ly stood tri­al on charges in the same fed­er­al cour­t­house in Wash­ing­ton in the case that had ac­cused him of con­spir­ing to over­turn his 2020 elec­tion loss in a des­per­ate bid to cling to pow­er.

More than 1,200 peo­ple across the U.S. had been con­vict­ed of Jan. 6 crimes over the last four years, in­clud­ing rough­ly 200 peo­ple who plead­ed guilty to as­sault­ing law en­force­ment.

Hun­dreds of Jan. 6 de­fen­dants who didn’t en­gage in any of the vi­o­lence and de­struc­tion were charged with mis­de­meanour tres­pass­ing of­fences, and many of those served lit­tle to no time be­hind bars.

But the vi­o­lence that day has been doc­u­ment­ed ex­ten­sive­ly through videos, tes­ti­mo­ny and oth­er ev­i­dence seen by judges and ju­rors in the cour­t­house that its with­in view of the Capi­tol.

Po­lice were dragged in­to the crowd and beat­en. Ri­ot­ers used makeshift weapons to at­tack po­lice, in­clud­ing flag­poles, a crutch and a hock­ey stick. In­ves­ti­ga­tors doc­u­ment­ed a num­ber of firearms in the crowd, along with knives, a pitch­fork, a tom­a­hawk ax, brass knuck­le gloves and oth­er weapons. Of­fi­cers have de­scribed in tes­ti­mo­ny fear­ing for their lives as mem­bers of the mob hurled in­sults and ob­scen­i­ties at them.

Of the more than 1,500 peo­ple charged, about 250 peo­ple were con­vict­ed of crimes by a judge or a ju­ry af­ter a tri­al, while more than 1,000 oth­ers had plead­ed guilty to of­fences. On­ly two peo­ple were ac­quit­ted of all charges by judges af­ter bench tri­als. No ju­ry has ful­ly ac­quit­ted a Capi­tol ri­ot de­fen­dant.

More than 1,000 ri­ot­ers had been sen­tenced, with over 700 re­ceiv­ing at least some time be­hind bars. The rest were giv­en some com­bi­na­tion of pro­ba­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, home de­ten­tion or fines.

WASH­ING­TON (AP) —

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