Washington In relation to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when thousands of his supporters stormed the building amid his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, President Donald Trump on Monday commuted the sentences of 14 of his supporters and granted approximately 1,500 pardons.
Those convicted of seditious conspiracy who were members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers had their sentences commuted by Trump. This was followed by his granting of “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” which included assaults of law enforcement.
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As he signed the agreement in the Oval Office, Trump remarked, “This is a big one,” and added, “To be honest, we hope they come out tonight.”
Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, has a counsel who informed NBC News on Monday that his client is being prepared for release from Louisiana’s medium-security federal prison, FCI Pollock. Tarrio was incarcerated in federal prison for 22 years after being found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Attorney Nayib Hassan stated that he is being processed out.
Speaker of the House at the time of the attack, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., referred to Trump’s conduct as “an outrageous insult to our justice system” and the law enforcement personnel who guarded the Capitol that day.
“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,” she said in a press release. “We must never forget the amazing bravery and bravery of the law enforcement heroes who stood in the breach and made sure that democracy survived on that terrible day, regardless of the President’s decision.
One of the main campaign pledges made by Trump is fulfilled by the pardons.
Trump attempted to disassociate himself from the Jan. 6 attack right away, claiming that those who violated the law needed to face consequences. However, a new narrative developed over the ensuing years, and Trump soon started publicly expressing his support for the Jan. 6 rioters by referring to them as “hostages.”
One of the most important events in American history was the historic assault on the Capitol, which disrupted the orderly handover of power.
More than 1,500 persons were charged with crimes as a result of it, and more than 1,100 defendants were found guilty, making it the largest FBI investigation ever. After being found guilty of petty counts such as unlawful parading within the Capitol, many low-level riot convicts received probationary sentences.
However, hundreds of others received lengthy prison terms for serious crimes like assaulting police with lethal or hazardous weapons.
Beyond restoring the right to vote and the right to bear arms for those convicted of felonies, pardons or commutations would have little practical effect on the 700 or so defendants who had either never received prison sentences or had already served them when Trump issued the pardons.
Only a small percentage of the more than 600 individuals who received prison sentences remain incarcerated. Many in the federal Bureau of Prisons’ custody were found guilty of violently attacking police officers guarding the Capitol during an assault on January 6 in which defendants carrying firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, ametal whips, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a large Trump billboard, Trump flags, apitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches, and even an explosive device were found.
The attack left over 140 police officers wounded and several Trump supporters dead, including one who was shot while attempting to enter the House Speaker’s Lobby and another who lost his life in a vicious battle at the lower west tunnel, which saw some of the day’s worst violence.
In his inauguration speech, Trump expressed his hope that he would one day be known as a “peacemaker and unifier,” but he made no mention of January 6.
Shortly after, however, he addressed the Jan. 6 defendants and spoke to an overflowing gathering of supporters in the Capitol, once again expressing his irrational accusation that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.”
“I was going to talk about the J6 hostages,” Trump stated in that speech, referring to criminal defendants as “hostages”—including hundreds who confessed to their crimes under oath and others who were found guilty by judges or juries of their peers. However, you’ll be content because, as you know, actions speak louder than words. Additionally, there will be a lot of activity around the J6 captives.
It was always possible that Trump would retake power and pardon the defendants in the Capitol riots, but the Justice Department “pressed ahead anyway” because “political considerations should not play any part in the Justice Department’s evaluation of facts and law, which showed that these were crimes, some of them terribly serious crimes that warranted prosecution,” an attorney who worked on the Jan. 6 cases as a federal prosecutor told NBC News.
The source claimed that they and a large number of their colleagues “have no regrets about having pursued these cases” and that the endeavor is still very significant because it produced “a definitive, public factual record of what actually transpired” on January 6.
“Police officers and civilians who were attacked in the Capitol were reassured by these cases that there were people and that the Department of Justice understood what they had to go through and give up. According to the source, hundreds of offenders admitted their crimes by entering guilty pleas in public court as a result of these instances, and hundreds more were found guilty at trial. “The study will probably end before it is finished, especially because the special counsel’s work was abruptly stopped. The record, however, remains intact.