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Trump issues pardons for all participants in Jan. 6 riot at U.S. Capitol

Updated January 20, 2025 - 9:52 pm

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including people who assaulted police, using his clemency powers on his first day in office to dismantle the largest investigation and prosecution in Justice Department history.

Among those set to be released from prison are defendants captured on camera committing violent attacks on law enforcement as lawmakers met to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups convicted of seditious conspiracy in the most serious cases brought by the Justice Department will also be freed from prison after having their sentences commuted.

Trump is directing the attorney general to seek the dismissal of about 450 pending Jan. 6 cases.

The pardons were expected after Trump’s yearslong campaign to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack that left more than 100 police officers injured and threatened the peaceful transfer of power. Yet the scope of the clemency still comes as a massive blow to the Justice Department’s effort to hold participants accountable over what has been described as one of the darkest days in American history.

Trump had suggested in the weeks leading up to his return to the White House that instead of blanket pardons he was going to look at the Jan. 6 defendants on a case-by-case basis. Vice President JD Vance had said just days ago that people responsible for the violence during the Capitol riot “obviously” should not be pardoned.

Calls them ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages’

Casting the rioters as “patriots” and “hostages,” Trump has claimed they were unfairly treated by the Justice Department that also charged him with federal crimes in two cases he contends were politically motivated. Trump said the pardons end “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.”

An attorney for Enrique Tarrio, the former national chairman of the Proud Boys who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, said he expects his client to be released from prison Monday night. Tarrio, who was convicted of orchestrating a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 election, is serving the longest sentence of any of the Jan. 6 defendants.

The pardons come weeks after Trump’s own Jan. 6 case was dismissed because of the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Had Trump lost the 2024 election, he may have ultimately stood trial in the same federal courthouse within view of the Capitol where Jan. 6 cases have been playing out over the last four years.

Reaction: ‘An outrageous insult’

The pardons were met with elation from Trump supporters and lawyers for the Jan. 6 defendants. Trump supporters gathered late Monday in the cold outside the Washington jail, where more than a dozen defendants were being held before the pardons.

“We are deeply thankful for President Trump for his actions today,” said James Lee Bright, an attorney who represented Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was serving an 18-year prison sentence after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes.

It’s unclear how quickly the defendants may be released from prison. An attorney for Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, said he expected his client to be released from prison Monday night.

“This marks a pivotal moment in our client’s life, and it symbolizes a turning point for our nation,” attorney Nayib Hassan said in a statement. “We are optimistic for the future, as we now turn the page on this chapter, embracing new possibilities and opportunities.”

Democrats slammed the move to extend the pardons to violent rioters, many of whose crimes were captured on camera and broadcast on live TV. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution.”

“Donald Trump is ushering in a Golden Age for people that break the law and attempt to overthrow the government,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in an emailed statement.

Former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who lost consciousness and suffered a heart attack after a rioter shocked him with a stun gun, appeared stunned to learn from an Associated Press reporter that those who assaulted police officers are among the pardon recipients.

“This is what the American people voted for,” he said. “How do you react to something like that?”

Fanone said he has spent the past four years worried about his safety and the well-being of his family. Pardoning his assailants only compounds his fears, he said.

“I think they’re cowards,” he said. “Their strength was in their numbers and the mob mentality. And as individuals, they are who they are.”

More than 1.2K convicted

More than 1,200 people have been convicted in the riot, including approximately 250 people convicted of assault charges.

Hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants who didn’t engage in any of the violence and destruction were charged with misdemeanor trespassing offenses, and many of those served little to no time behind bars.

But the violence that day has been documented extensively through videos, testimony and other evidence showing rioters — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — swarming the Capitol, quickly overrunning overwhelmed police, shattering windows and sending lawmakers and aides running into hiding.

Police were dragged into the crowd and beaten. One officer screamed in pain as he was crushed in a door frame, and another suffered a heart attack after a rioter pressed a stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him. Officers have described in testimony fearing for their lives as members of the mob hurled insults and obscenities at them.

Of the more than 1,500 people charged, about 250 people have been convicted of crimes by a judge or a jury after a trial. At least 1,020 had pleaded guilty to crimes as of Jan. 1. Only two people were acquitted of all charges by judges after bench trials. No jury has fully acquitted a Capitol riot defendant.

More than 1,000 rioters have already been sentenced, with over 700 receiving at least some time behind bars. The rest were given some combination of probation, community service, home detention or fines.

Death penalty directive

Trump signed a sweeping execution order on the death penalty Monday, directing the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions.

In the order signed in the first hours of his return to the White House, Trump said “politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment have defied and subverted the laws of our country.”

A moratorium on federal executions had been in place since 2021, and only three defendants remain on federal death row after Democratic President Joe Biden converted 37 of their sentences to life in prison.

The Trump administration carried out 13 federal executions during Trump’s first term, more than under any president in modern history.

Trump eyes retribution on intelligence community over laptop

Trump says his administration will move to suspend the security clearances of the more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation.”

The action is an early indication of Trump’s determination to exact retribution on perceived adversaries and is the latest point of tension between Trump and an intelligence community of which he has been openly disdainful. The sweeping move, announced via executive order Monday, also sets up a potential court challenge from ex-officials seeking to maintain access to sensitive government information.

“The president has a lot of authority when it comes to security clearances. The problem the White House will run into is, if they depart from their existing procedures, they could set up a judicial appeal for these 51 people — and it will probably be a class-action suit since they’re all in alike or similar circumstances,” said Dan Meyer, a Washington lawyer who specializes in the security clearance and background check process.

The executive order targets the clearances of 50 people in all, including the 49 surviving signatories. The list includes prominent officials like James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama and John Brennan, Obama’s former CIA director. Also targeted is John Bolton, who was fired as Trump’s national security adviser during his first term and later wrote a book whose publication the White House sought to block on grounds that it disclosed national security information.

It was not clear how many of the former officials still maintain security clearances.

Orders withdrawal from Paris Agreement

Trump ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the landmark Paris Agreement, launching another retreat in the global fight against climate change by the world’s wealthiest nation.

The move was widely expected since Trump pulled the U.S. from the emissions-cutting pact during his first term and had vowed do to it again during his campaign. Nevertheless, the decision to initiate the action hours after his inauguration underscored the seriousness of the Republican’s commitments to rapidly overhaul U.S. energy and climate policy.

“I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord ripoff,” Trump said, before signing a letter notifying the United Nations that the U.S. intends to leave the agreement. “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”

The exit from the Paris Agreement is just one of a number of changes Trump initiated on his first day back in the White House, as he shifts U.S. policy toward promoting fossil fuel production and away from fighting climate change. In his inaugural address, Trump vowed that his actions Monday “will end the green new deal.”

The departure of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement isn’t expected to be immediate. Signatories to the 2015 accord can initiate a withdrawal by sending a formal notice to the U.N, and then need to wait a year for it to take effect.

Even so, just the specter of the U.S. exit had already shaken global climate diplomacy, casting a shadow over the last round of annual U.N. talks at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan last November.

Panama bristles over Trump’s canal comments

Trump’s insistence Monday that he wants to have the Panama Canal back under U.S. control fed nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.S. military intervention.

“American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump said Monday.

In the streets of the capital, some Panamanians saw Trump’s remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap. Others recalled the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama with concern.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded forcefully Monday, as he did after Trump’s initial statement last month that the U.S. should consider repossessing the canal, saying the canal belongs to his country of 4 million and will remain Panama’s territory.

Luis Barrera, a 52-year-old cab driver, said Panama had fought hard to get the canal back and has expanded it since taking control.

“I really feel uncomfortable because it’s like when you’re big and you take a candy from a little kid,” Barrera said.

At a rally in Phoenix in December, Trump said he might try to get the canal back after it was “foolishly” ceded to Panama. He complained that shippers were overcharged and that China had taken control of the key shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Earlier this month, Trump wouldn’t rule out using military force to take it back.

Canada says it will retaliate if Trump imposes tariffs

Top Canadian ministers said Monday that Canada will be ready to retaliate after President Donald Trump said he was thinking of imposing a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1.

Trump has been threatening to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and other trading partners.

“We’re thinking in terms of 25% on Mexico and Canada,” Trump said late Monday night in the Oval Office. “I think February 1st.”

Trump pledged in his inaugural address that tariffs would be coming and said foreign countries would be paying the trade penalties, even though those taxes are currently paid by domestic importers and often passed along to consumers.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said they “will continue to work on preventing tariffs” but said they are also “working on retaliation.”

Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Trump can be unpredictable.

“None of this should be surprising,” he said. “Our country is absolutely ready to respond to any one of these scenarios.”

Orders withdrawal from WHO

Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization, a decision that would cut off one of the international aid and disease response group’s largest funding sources.

The order, which was among a flurry of executive actions Trump signed Monday in the Oval Office, says the “WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments,” according to the White House website.

“World Health ripped us off,” Trump said Monday. “Everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore.”

The Geneva-based WHO plays a pivotal role in battling global health threats, focusing on infectious diseases as well as humanitarian crises and chronic health conditions, like cancer and heart diseases. A U.S. exit could leave it short of critical funding. During the 2024-25 budget cycle, U.S. contributions came to $662 million, or 19% of the agency’s total revenue, according to the WHO.

Halts offshore wind lease sales

Trump signed an executive order Monday temporarily halting offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pausing the issuance of approvals, permits and loans for both onshore and offshore wind projects.

The interior secretary will review wind leasing and permitting practices for federal waters and lands. The assessment will consider the environmental impact of wind projects on wildlife, the economic costs associated with the intermittent generation of electricity and the effect of subsidies on the viability of the wind industry, the order states.

Trump wants to increase drilling for oil and gas and has been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind. Trump’s pick for interior secretary, Doug Burgum, was asked during his confirmation hearing whether he would commit to continuing with offshore wind leases that have been issued. Burgum said projects that make sense and are already in law will continue.

Wind power currently provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the United States, making it the nation’s largest source of renewable energy. There is 73 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity under development in the U.S., enough to power 30 million homes, according to the American Clean Power Association.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to end the offshore wind industry as soon as he returned to the White House. He wants to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, which cause climate change, in order for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world, he says.

Order: Name change for Denali

Trump issued an executive order Monday calling for North America’s tallest peak — Denali in Alaska — to be renamed Mount McKinley, reviving an idea he’d floated years ago and drawing a rebuke from Alaska’s Republican senior senator.

The order came hours after Trump, who took office for a second time Monday, said he planned to “restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a statement said she disagrees strongly with Trump wanting to change Denali’s name.

“Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial,” she said.

According to the National Park Service, a prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak “Mount McKinley” for William McKinley, who was elected president that year. McKinley had never been to Alaska. The name was formally recognized by the U.S. government until it was changed in 2015 by the Obama administration to Denali, to reflect the traditions of Alaska Natives and preference of many Alaskans. The move drew opposition from lawmakers in McKinley’s home state of Ohio.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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