With a swipe of his pen, President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise on Monday night, issuing sweeping pardons that erased four years of federal investigations and prosecutions of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Sitting in the Oval Office, Trump signed pardons for what he said were 1,500 defendants. It was part of a slate of executive orders rolling back years of Executive Branch actions taken since losing the office in 2020.
Trump talked about issuing pardons during the presidential campaign, but the breadth of his directive surprised even some supporters and enraged his critics.
“So this is Jan. 6. These are the hostages,” Trump said, referring to the defendants. “Approximately 1,500 for a pardon. Full pardon.”
The executive action wipes away any criminal responsibility for rioters who fought with police, forced open doors, vandalized offices and wandered the halls of the Capitol shouting as members of Congress were forced to pause the counting of electoral ballots and flee the building.
While the president said the order covered around 1,500 people, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly 1,600 people have been charged in the U.S. Capitol riot, including 44 people with Georgia ties.
Many of those charged faced misdemeanors charges akin to trespassing or demonstrating without permission, while others were charged with assaulting police, seditious conspiracy or civil disorder — a felony that involves violently obstructing police or interfering with the functioning of the federal government.
As the years have passed, many Republicans — including members of Congress who were at the Capitol as rioters forced their way inside — have characterized the mob that attacked the Capitol as peaceful, but the defendants’ own words and actions suggest otherwise.
For example, Locust Grove resident Jack Wade Whitton was among several Georgians who fought with police in a tunnel on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol. Police had clogged the tunnel, which lead to an entrance on the Senate wing where members of Congress were evacuating.
Whitton was on the front line of the fighting, striking police with a metal crutch he had picked up in the chaos.
“You’re gonna die tonight,” he yelled, according to court records which quoted police body camera footage.
Video surveillance shows Whitton dragging a fallen police officer into the crowd. He bragged about it in an Instagram message to an acquaintance later, calling him a “bad cop.”
“Yea I fed him to the people. Idk his status. And don’t care tbh,” he wrote.
Whitton was given a sentence of 57 months in prison and was due to be released in April.
Credit: FBI
Credit: FBI
Until he signed the order, Trump had been cagey about the details of his plans. Even his running mate, JD Vance, did not appear to know the scope of the pardons. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Vance said defendants charged with assaulting police “obviously” should not be granted pardons.
It was not known how soon incarcerated defendants would be released. “We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” Trump said.
The order drew immediate condemnation from groups worried about far-right militancy. Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, called it a “deeply disturbing message” about the next four years.
“Between his decision to issue pardons and commutations for the assault on Jan. 6, led by known white supremacists and extremists, and his militarized anti-immigrant actions to promote white nationalist goals, Donald Trump’s first day in office made the country less safe for Jews and so many others, and more welcoming to those who threaten us,” she wrote in a statement.
Trump and his supporters have repeatedly referred to the defendants as “hostages” or “political prisoners,” but most are not in custody.
Of the 1,100 whose charges have been fully adjudicated, 667 received some period of incarceration. Many of those who did get prison time, have served their sentences and are out of prison.
Among the 44 Georgia defendants, 16 received periods of incarceration ranging from 20 days to five years in prison with seven receiving sentences of less than two months. Nine Georgia defendants received probation, rather than prison.
Thirteen Georgians have not taken a plea deal or had their charges brought to court and are out on bond. Only in very rare cases were defendants held without bond and defendant commonly were given appearance bonds, meaning they promised to return for hearings and did not have to post a monetary bond.
While the most of the Jan. 6 defendants have had their slates wiped clean, 14 leaders of the far-right groups the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys had their sentences commuted. Trump said his team was “doing further research” on those cases.
The issue of Jan. 6 is important for Trump’s MAGA base, but it also was a topline issue for extremist groups crippled by the Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigations. As Trump took the oath of office in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, a couple dozen members of the Proud Boys marched near the Capitol One Arena in Washington chanting for the release of their leaders.
The group marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where the criminal cases of all the Jan. 6 defendants reside. Once at the court, they displayed a banner in the Proud Boy’s traditional black and gold lettering that read, “The Proud Boys Did Nothing Wrong.”
Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, who is serving 22 year following his conviction on seditious conspiracy, was not on the list of commutations, making him the rare exception among noted extremists to receive a full pardon.
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