Trump says he's pardoning nearly all Capitol riot defendants

Zoe Tillman and Josh Wingrove, Bloomberg News on Jan 20, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday said he was pardoning nearly all of the people charged or convicted with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, fulfilling one of his campaign promises hours after he was sworn in as president.

Trump announced mass clemency for roughly 1,500 people to reporters gathered at the White House. He said that he would fully pardon almost all of the people involved in the riots, whose charges ranged from misdemeanor trespassing to assaulting police with weapons.

The Jan. 6 attack spurred the largest federal criminal investigation in U.S. history. Approximately 1,583 people were federally charged with participating in the attack, according to the government. More than 1,000 defendants pleaded guilty and more than 200 were convicted at trial.

There were more than 300 cases pending that hadn’t reached a verdict or plea deal.

Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election loss became a core part of his post-presidency political identity. He made the prospect of mass clemency for the people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack — which temporarily stopped Congress from certifying former President Joe Biden’s win — a prominent part of his reelection campaign.

Trump’s critics and former federal prosecutors denounced the prospect of sweeping pardons, warning it would normalize political violence. More than 140 police officers were assaulted, and rioters caused millions of dollars in damage to the Capitol building, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.

Sentences for the rioters have ranged from probation for people found guilty of misdemeanor crimes for illegally entering the Capitol to decades in prison for defendants convicted of violence or seditious conspiracy. Trials revealed that people brought guns, knives, chemical sprays, tasers and a variety of makeshift weapons to the Capitol.

On Monday, Trump said he’d also commute, or cut short the sentences, for six people, but didn’t immediately offer details.

There is precedent for large-scale presidential clemency. In December, Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people who had been placed on home confinement during the pandemic. The late President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation in 1977 pardoning Americans who avoided the military draft during the Vietnam War, although there was an exception for crimes involving “force or violence.”

_____