
Trump Grants Sweeping Clemency For Jan. 6 Political Prisoners After Biden Pardons Family
Tristan Justice visit on Twitter @JusticeTristan
President Donald Trump pardoned nearly every defendant charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 after his predecessor issued pre-emptive pardons for the rest of the Biden family moments before leaving office.
The freshly inaugurated president delivered the pardons in one of his first acts upon his triumphant return to the Oval Office. The executive order granted “full, complete, and unconditional pardons” to roughly 1,500 people and commuted the sentences of another 14. The total number of defendants charged is 1,583, according to The Hill.
“What they’ve done to these people is outrageous,” Trump said at the White House as he signed a pile of orders across the Resolute Desk.
While the pardon eliminates convictions for those who already served jail time, Trump ordered any remaining prisoners still incarcerated to be released immediately just hours after he characterized his inauguration at the Capitol as “liberation day.”
“We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” Trump said. “They’re expecting it.”
Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway reported on X Monday night that Ed Martin, an attorney for Jan. 6 defendants, will replace Washington, D.C.’s zealous prosecutor of the demonstrators, Matthew Graves, as U.S. attorney for the district.
Democrats condemned Trump’s pardons for those charged with crimes related to the riot four years ago, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whose failures to secure the Capitol as House speaker at the time was the focus of a congressional report in 2022.
“The President’s actions are 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,” Pelosi said on X after she skipped Trump’s inauguration.