Donald Trump pardons supporters arrested for January 6, 2021 Capitol riot
US President Donald Trump pardoned his supporters arrested for the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Donald Trump on Monday (local time), hours after taking oath as US President for the second time, pardoned his supporters arrested for the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
"These are the hostages -- approximately 1,500 people -- for a pardon, full pardon," news agency AFP quoted Donald Trump as saying at a signing ceremony shortly after arriving at the White House.
As of early January, over 1,580 people have been charged criminally in federal court in connection with January 6, with over 1,000 pleading guilty, according to the Department of Justice.
The pardons were expected after Donald Trump’s yearslong campaign to rewrite the history of the January 6 attack that left more than 100 police officers injured and threatened the peaceful transfer of power.
Yet the scope of the clemency still comes as a massive blow to the Justice Department’s effort to hold participants accountable over what has been described as one of the darkest days in American history, news agency Associated Press reported.
Donald Trump also commuted the prison sentences of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.
Trump had suggested in the weeks leading up to his return to the White House that he was going to look at the January 6 defendants on a case-by-case basis.
Vice President JD Vance had said just days ago that people responsible for the violence during the Capitol riot “obviously” should not be pardoned.
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.
The pardons come weeks after Trump’s own January 6 case was dismissed because of the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Had Trump lost the 2024 election, he may have ultimately stood trial in the same federal courthouse within view of the Capitol where cases have been playing out over the last four years.
Hundreds of January 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 showing rioters — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — swarming the Capitol, quickly overrunning overwhelmed police, shattering windows and sending lawmakers and aides running into hiding, AP reported.
(With inputs from AP)
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