Live updates from Donald Trump’s fourth day in office

On January 24, 2025By Littum

In this photo from the body-worn camera of a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer released and annotated by the Justice Department in the government’s sentencing memorandum, Logan Barnhart circles the Capitol’s lower terrace on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Barnhart, a Michigan pipelayer who modeled for romance novel covers, was sentenced Thursday, April 13, 2023, to three years in prison for assaulting police at the US Capitol during a mob attack. (Ministry of Justice via AP)

After president Donald Trump Pardoning about 1,500 Jan. 6 Capitol rioters on Monday, far-right activists cheered the move, saying it strengthened their loyalty to him. Some also borrowed from the president’s own rhetoric and called for retaliation.

“We will never forget, we will never forgive. You can’t get rid of us,” a California chapter of the far-right Proud Boys posted on Telegram.

Enrique Tarriothe former National Proud Boys Leader, whose 22-year sentence on trumped-up conspiracy charges was pardoned by Trump, went on the conspiracy theorist podcast Alex Jones After his release.

File – In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo enlargements loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington. An inspector general report says US Capitol Police did not respond properly to officers’ use of an emergency notification system on January 6, and there are no records that most calls were simulcast over radio some of them. That’s according to a report obtained by the Associated Press. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, file)

“The people who did this, they have to feel the heat,” Tarrio said. “We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did.”

The children and the rhetoric of retaliation from some of those released this week are raising deep concerns among lawyers, former federal investigators and experts who follow extremism. They worry the arbitrary release of anyone charged in the riots could embolden extremists and make political violence more common, including around contentious political issues such as border security and elections.

“This move doesn’t just rewrite the narrative of January 6,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “It sets a dangerous precedent for political violence to be a legitimate tool in American democracy.”