WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to provide “major pardons” for people convicted in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a move that his allies hope could come as soon as Inauguration Day and which has the Republican’s critics on edge just weeks after the fourth anniversary of the fatal riot.
Trump voiced sympathy during the 2024 campaign for nonviolent Jan. 6 offenders and decried long sentences. But he hasn’t detailed how he would decide to pardon or release early which of the nearly 1,600 people charged, including 600 for assaulting or interfering with police, and more than 1,200 people convicted after the riot.
Trump’s comments inspired some Jan. 6 defendants to ask judges for delays in court action, spurred some to lobby for reprieves, demoralized some police officers injured in the attack and threatened a political brawl over the potential for turning loose people convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who supports clemency for nonviolent offenders and opposes it for people who assaulted police officers, said it sounded like Trump wants to review cases to see if prosecutors sometimes went too far.
“For those kind of folks who in their defense was, ‘I didn’t realize, I thought the Capitol was open. The Capitol’s a public building; we were not the first ones in,’” pardons or commutations would be appropriate, Hawley told USA TODAY. “I’m against it for people who assaulted cops, threw stuff at cops, broke down doors, broke windows.”
Democrats warn that pardoning any of the participants sets a bad precedent by signaling that future insurrectionists could be let off the hook.
“I think it would be a terrible mistake for him to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told USA TODAY. “That’s the subject of condemnation, not a pardon.”
Advocates and family members of Jan. 6 defendants gathered at a Washington hotel on the fourth anniversary this year to demand clemency. Suzzanne Monk, a longtime advocate for those defendants, said she and her colleagues have been having conversations with key people in Trump’s orbit.
“We’re predicting 100% pardons on Day One, or commutations for everyone to be released on Day One,” Monk told Reuters.
Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 defeat culminated in a rally that spurred a mob toward the Capitol to block congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump told thousands of supporters if they didn’t fight they’d lose their country. Supporters then marched to the Capitol, with hundreds charged with assaulting, resisting, impeding or obstructing police during a civil disorder and others ransacking congressional offices and occupying the Senate chamber. A House committee that investigated the attack called Trump the “central cause.”
Trump campaigned for years pledging to pardon Jan. 6 defendants he called “political prisoners” and “hostages,” and he reiterated plans for “major pardons” when he takes office.
“People that were doing some bad things weren’t prosecuted and people that didn’t even walk into the building are in jail right now,” Trump said Jan. 7 during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago. “So we’ll be looking at the whole thing. But I’ll be making major pardons.”
Trump didn’t answer directly when asked at the press conference if he would pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers.
“The crowd was made up of a lot of different people, so we’ll see,” Trump said at the news conference.
Trump hasn’t detailed who will receive pardons. His incoming vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, told Fox News on Jan. 12 that peaceful protesters should be pardoned and those who were violent should not be, but he left uncertain who would be covered.
“If you protested peacefully on Jan. 6th, and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned,” Vance said. “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned, and there’s a little bit of a gray area there, but we’re very much committed to seeing the equal administration of law. And there are a lot of people, we think, in the wake of Jan. 6th who were prosecuted unfairly. We need to rectify that.”
At times, Trump said he would focus pardons on nonviolent offenders and on people who got the longest prison terms. He specifically cited 22- and 18-year sentences which were given to the leaders of two far-right militant groups convicted of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.
“It’s a horrible thing that’s happening: 22 years, 18 years, 10 years,” Trump said. “It’s a terrible thing.”
Tarrio and Rhodes were among 18 defendants convicted of seditious conspiracy for trying to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election. Tarrio was in Baltimore on Jan. 6 but was convicted of organizing others to riot. His lawyer, Nayib Hassan, sent a letter to Trump and others in his orbit asking for a Tarrio pardon.
“We’re making all efforts possible to ensure that this communication goes up to President-elect Trump,” Hassan told Reuters.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment on Tarrio’s pardon request but said Trump will consider pardons on a case-by-case basis.
“President Trump will pardon Americans who were denied due process and unfairly prosecuted by the weaponized Department of Justice,” said transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, one of Rhodes’ lawyers, said they have not yet requested a Trump pardon because the process is murky, but they intend to do so. Rhodes never entered the Capitol and his lawyers contend he was convicted and punished for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.
“If Stewart is offered a pardon, he will accept,” Franklin-Best told USA TODAY.
Rhodes’ former wife, Tasha Adams, has told USA TODAY she feared he would kill her if he is released from prison, because she and her son Dakota Adams allege he has abused and threatened them. Rhodes’ lawyers denied the Adamses’ allegations on his behalf.
Some of the police officers injured defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 denounced the possibility that Trump would excuse people who violently attacked law enforcement. Rioters carried firearms, chemical spray, tasers, axes and knives, and makeshift weapons such as baseball bats and flagpoles, according to court records.
“These people are terrorists,” former Metro D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone, who retired in 2021 after suffering a heart attack and concussion during the brawl, told reporters during a news conference Jan. 8. “They use violence to achieve a political goal.”
Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who retired in 2022 because of his injuries from the attack, said during the news conference some of the same officers who defended the Capitol will provide security for Trump’s inauguration.
“It’s grotesque,” Gonell said. “It’s a betrayal.”
Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., who personally helped clean up the broken glass as a House member after the riot, told USA TODAY he worries pardons offer “so much room for abuse.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told USA TODAY that Trump would send a dangerous message with pardons.
“He wants to send a message that if you commit crimes for him, he will write it off, and I think that’s very dangerous,” she said.
Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., has proposed legislation since 2017 to have a constitutional amendment to limit a president’s pardon power to not pardon himself or a close relative, campaign or administration staff. The legislation hasn’t made it out of the Judiciary Committee.
“President Trump, to some extent, with these pardons will be absolving himself because he’s responsible for each and every one of these people going up to do what they did,” Cohen said during the news conference with Fanone and Gonell.
Any pardon of categories of Jan. 6 defendants could have implications for hundreds of people, according to statistics maintained by the Justice Department.
Nearly 1,600 people had been charged in the Capitol attack by Jan. 6, the riot‘s four-year anniversary, according to the Justice Department.
More than 1,000 people pleaded guilty to charges, including 327 to felonies and 682 to misdemeanors. Among the people who pled guilty to felonies, the Justice Department counts 172 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement, 130 who pleaded guilty to obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder and 69 who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous or deadly weapon. Another 220 people were convicted at contested trials. About 1,100 people have been sentenced, with 667 put behind bars and 145 given periods of home detention.
“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Trump told CNN in 2023. “I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.”
About 600 of the defendants were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers, including 174 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon, or causing serious bodily injury.
Among the guilty pleas to felonies, 172 defendants admitted assaulting law enforcement, 130 acknowledged obstructing law enforcement during a riot and 69 pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
A number of Jan. 6 defendants asked judges to postpone trials, sentencings and imprisonment because of anticipated pardons.
A day after Trump’s election, Christopher Carnell asked for a delay in his sentencing by arguing he was “expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office.”
Carnell had been convicted of misdemeanor charges in February 2024 including entering the Capitol and disorderly conduct.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell rejected the request for delay and sentenced him Dec. 13 to six months in prison.
William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, who was charged with obstructing Congress, civil disorder and entering the Capitol, filed a motion personally Nov. 9 to delay his trial because “the American people resoundingly rejected these prosecutions by electing President Trump to end them and pardon January 6 defendants.” Pope argued further action would be “a belligerent disregard” for the American people.
Government lawyers said Pope’s “expectation of a pardon is mere speculation.”
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras set a pretrial conference for May. On Jan. 7, Contreras gave Pope permission to attend Trump’s inauguration because he wasn’t charged with assault or vandalism.
Dova Winegeart of Fairview, Oklahoma, was convicted in a bench trial in July 2024 of destruction of government property, sentenced Dec. 9 to four months in prison and fined $1,000. She asked to report to prison after the inauguration.
“The parties and this Court are in uncharted territory,” Winegeart’s lawyers wrote. “Never before has a criminal justice enforcement priority of one Presidential Administration been disavowed so clearly by the incoming Presidential Administration – including from the President-Elect himself – coupled with a pledge to take affirmative steps to ‘undo’ the efforts and outcomes of cases prosecuted by the prior administration.”
Prosecutors opposed the delay and said even if Winegeart received a pardon, “which is purely speculative at this juncture − that pardon would not unring the bell of conviction.”
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected Winegeart’s request on Dec. 11.
