They attacked the police and tried to overturn an election. What to know about Trump’s January 6 mass pardon of rioters

CNN
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With the stroke of a pen on Monday, President Donald Trump completely rescinded the Justice Department’s four-year effort to arrest, prosecute and punish the people who attacked the US capital on January 6, 2021.

It was the largest criminal investigation in American history, following Trump’s call in 2021 to come to Washington and try to prevent Congress from confirming his election defeat in 2020. More than 140 police officers were injured during the seven-hour siege, which also directly or indirectly led to the death of four Trump supporters in the mob and five police officers.

Trump on Monday pardoned nearly every convicted Jan. 6 rioter, and at his direction, the Justice Department is also starting to ask the federal court in Washington, DC to dismiss pending cases with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be brought again at a later date.

The presidential proclamation, which Trump signed in the Oval Office, said this act of mass pardon “ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated against the American people.”

Trump’s pardons make no effort to distinguish between people who committed violence that day compared to those charged or convicted of non-violent offenses. For example, the pardons include the men who viciously beat DC police officer Michael Fanone and pepper-sprayed US Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day.

“Six people who assaulted me while I was doing my job on January 6th … will now walk free,” Fanone told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday. “Six people who threatened my life and threatened my family members … My family, my children and I are less safe today because of Donald Trump and his supporters.”

Here’s what you need to know about the pardons:

The proclamation, which Trump signed, grants a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to virtually everyone who was convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes.

It covers approximately 1,250 people, the vast majority of whom pleaded guilty and admitted in court that they broke the law.

There was no distinction between people convicted of violent crimes versus non-violent misdemeanors, as Trump’s allies have signaled in recent weeks. Instead, the general pardon covers hundreds of rioters who were guilty of assaulting police officers, attacking members of the media, obstructing police during a riot and destroying government property.

Amazingly, the pardon includes Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Among the other pardons: Devlyn Thompson, who hit a police officer with a metal baton, and Robert Palmer, a Florida man who attacked police with a fire extinguisher, a wooden plank and a pole.

Trump’s proclamation singled out 14 members of far-right extremist groups, such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who received commutations instead of pardons.

This means they will be released from federal prison but will not have their civil rights restored, as is the case with a full pardon, paving the way for a recipient to get their right to own a gun or their right to vote back. However, Trump said his administration will review those cases to see if a pardon is appropriate in the future.

These people were charged in the most high-profile seditious conspiracy cases – most were found guilty, although some were acquitted of this charge while convicted of other felony charges.

The pardon for people convicted of seditious conspiracy is an amazing move. These defendants were seen as among the “worst of the worst,” largely because prosecutors proved that these people—unlike many of the other Trump supporters who stormed the capitol that day—had a specific plan to violently subvert the government.

The commutations covered Oath Keeper associate Thomas Caldwell, who was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but found guilty of obstructing official proceedings for hiding weapons at a nearby Virginia hotel that his allies could potentially use on January 6. Kelly Meggs, head of the group’s Florida chapter, was sentenced to a decade in prison for his seditious conspiracy conviction. And Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs will also be released from prison, where he is serving a seditious conspiracy sentence for leading a crowd of Proud Boys into the Capitol.

The vast majority of January 6 cases have already been resolved in court, leading to guilty pleas or convictions. But the final part of Trump’s proclamation ordered the roughly 300 pending cases to be dismissed.

About 60% of those cases are felony cases involving violent attacks against police, according to Justice Department statistics. Some charges were filed as recently as last week as part of the ongoing investigation that is nearly over now.

The proclamation says the attorney general should “pursue dismissal with prejudice” for “all pending charges” related to Jan. 6. “With prejudice” means the charges cannot be refiled in the future.

It will take some time, perhaps a few days or weeks, for federal prosecutors to file motions in court to dismiss those cases. Technically, it will be up to a judge to formally dismiss the cases, and judges have very little discretion to prevent that from happening if that’s what the Justice Department is asking.

There were fewer than 10 people deemed by a judge too dangerous to be released from federal custody before their trial. Once their cases are dismissed, they will also be released.

During and after the 2024 campaign, Trump held the door open to pardon any accused. But he also hedged at times. In recent weeks, Trump’s allies have signaled that the pardon would be limited to non-violent defendants.

Vice President JD Vance said this month, “if you committed violence that day, of course you shouldn’t be pardoned,” and House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that “peaceful protesters should be pardoned, but violent criminals should not.” Trump adviser Jason Miller reiterated this in an interview Monday morning with CNN’s Jake Tapper before Trump was inaugurated.

“President Trump has said we will review each of the cases individually,” Miller said. “We’ve also said that we certainly don’t support in any way, shape, or form anyone who has been violent toward law enforcement or things of that nature. But there have been a lot of people who have been unfairly treated, so they will look on a case-by-case basis.”

But there was no “case-by-case” review, as Trump aides promised.

Instead, Trump granted maximum clemency, ending all prosecutions, freeing everyone from prison and pardoning about 98% of convicted rioters. He did exactly what his faithful followers in the community called for on January 6 – general grace for all.

Throughout the day, Trump justified the pardons with the same array of lies and false claims he has used for years to whitewash the violence, deflect blame and rewrite history.

He falsely claimed that the Capitol mob was filled with “outside agitators” and that “the FBI was involved” in inciting the violence. These lies first surfaced in far-right circles in 2021 and were eventually embraced by Trump, who has made these claims at many of his rallies and media interviews.

There were some FBI informants in the crowd, but no undercover FBI agents. And the informants did not instigate the violence, were not authorized to break the law that day, and were not part of a “deep state” effort to frame Trump supporters for the violence.

He also claimed Monday that people charged in the Jan. 6 cases “end up in chains almost immediately.” But the overwhelming majority of the 1,600 accused were released almost immediately after their initial arrest. And about 40% of the convicted rioters were sentenced to probation and served no time behind bars after their case.

During the inauguration parade at Capital One Arena, before signing the proclamation, Trump attacked family members of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during its October 7, 2023 attack. Then he went on to talk about the emergency aid needed for “hostages ” on January 6 – the euphemism he uses to describe people who were convicted in a court of law and sentenced to prison by a judge.

The mass pardons also highlight Trump’s January 6 U-turn on the issue.

Isolated within the Republican Party and facing a bipartisan impeachment trial in the final weeks of his first term in January 2021, Trump said he was “shocked and deeply saddened” by what happened. He said rioters who breached the Capitol “defiled the seat of American democracy.”

One day after the uprisingTrump said, “to those who broke the law, you will pay,” and later promised that “those who participated in the attacks last week will be brought to justice.”

This story has been updated with further developments.

CNN’s Devan Cole and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.