President Donald Trump signed an executive order pardoning about 1,500 people for convictions related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot on Monday night, one of his first acts as president.
Trump only briefly addressed the order while signing a mountain of other executive orders on the Resolute Desk. An aide told the president that the order applied to “approximately 1,500” people at the riot. “We have about six commutations in there, where we’re doing further research,” Trump added.
“We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” the president said as he signed the order. “They’re expecting it.”
On the fourth anniversary of the attacks earlier this month, the Justice Department said that approximately 1,583 individuals were charged with crimes related to the riots that took place as Congress certified the 2020 presidential election.
That staggering figure included 608 charged with “assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents,” as well as another 174 that were charged with using a deadly weapon to injure a police officer.
These include a 71-year-old man from Pennsylvania who was given 46 months in prison for beating a police officer with a metal flag pole, as well as Christopher Worrell, a member of the Proud Boys, who was handed a 10-year prison sentence after emptying an entire can of pepper spray onto police officers defending the building.
Shane Jenkins, a Capitol rioter from Texas, was sentenced to seven years in prison after trying to using a tomahawk to break through windows, then joining a “concerted assault” on police officers defending a tunnel entrance to the building, according to the Justice Department.
Another Texas man, Andrew Taake, pleaded guilty for attacking Metropolitan Police Department officers with a metal whip and bear spray after he was caught bragging about it on the dating app Bumble.
Others faced sentences for trespassing, obstruction, and entering the building—even if they did not clash with law enforcement. Alan Hostetter, a former California police chief-turned-yoga instructor, was sentenced to over 11 years in prison for entering the Capitol with a deadly weapon and obstructing an official proceeding.
Other rioters were given smaller sentences for less violent crimes. Jay Johnston, a comedic actor known for his former role voicing a character on Bob’s Burgers, pleaded guilty to charges of obstructing law enforcement officers and was sentenced to a year in prison.
A statement later released by the White House clarified that the president’s order commuted the sentences of 14 individuals—including Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy.
The other individuals were granted a “complete and unconditional pardon.”
The list of pardons also includes the former leader of the Proud Boys, who was previously sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy and obstruction of Congress for his role in planning the attack.
Enrique Tarrio, the alt-right organization’s former national chairman, is one of the thousands of people expected to be freed after Trump’s sweeping order.
An attorney for Tarrio told NBC News he was being processed out of FCI Pollock in Louisiana, but exact details of what kind of clemency he was going to receive were unclear. Tarrio’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Federal prosecutors said the Proud Boys played a “central role in setting the January 6th attack on our Capitol into motion.” Tarrio was eventually convicted alongside three other Proud Boys members on charges of seditious conspiracy.
Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison, followed by 36 months of supervised release, in September 2023.
“He’s very excited,” his mother, Duarte Tarrio, previously told Local 10 News in Florida. “It’s surreal to him. He’s ready to go.”
But not everyone was ecstatic about Trump’s broad pardons for some of his most loyal followers. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was overseeing the certification of former President Joe Biden’s election in 2020, called the executive order an “outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol.”
