Just hours after taking office, US President Donald Trump granted pardons on Monday to more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump also ordered that all pending criminal cases against Capitol riot defendants be dropped.
Among those receiving a pardon was Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for directing a military-style assault on the Capitol.
Stewart Rhodes, the leader of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers, had his 18-year prison sentence commuted to time served. Both Tarrio and Rhodes had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Describing the rioters as “hostages,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony that he had granted “full pardons” to more than 1,500 defendants.
“We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” he said.
A total of 1,583 people were charged in connection with the assault on Congress by Trump supporters seeking to disrupt certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump repeatedly pledged during his election campaign to pardon those who took part in the attack, calling them “patriots” and “political prisoners.”
Trump, whose first term as president ended under the cloud of the Capitol assault, has repeatedly played down the violence of January 6, even going so far as to describe it as a “day of love.”
More than 140 police officers were injured in hours of clashes with rioters wielding flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks and other makeshift weapons, along with Tasers and canisters of bear spray.
The Capitol assault followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race.
He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.
Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the pardons, calling them “an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol.”
“It is shameful that the president has decided to make one of his top priorities the abandonment and betrayal of police officers who put their lives on the line to stop an attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power,” Pelosi said.
Trump was charged by special counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
But the case never made it to trial, and ahead of the inauguration was dropped under the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump’s move on Monday granted a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to everyone convicted of involvement in the riot and ordered the immediate release of those still in prison.
He commuted to time and served the sentences of nine members of the Oath Keepers, including the founder Rhodes. Five members of the Proud Boys also had their sentences commuted.
Biden, before leaving office on Monday, issued preemptive pardons to former Covid advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley and close family members to shield them from “politically motivated prosecutions” by the Trump administration.
Biden gave similar pardons to former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney and other members of the congressional committee that investigated the Capitol attack.
Just minutes before Trump was sworn in, Biden announced he was issuing pardons to his brother, James Biden, James’s wife, Sara Jones Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, Valerie’s husband, John Owens, and his brother Francis Biden.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
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