Donald Trump calls them “patriots” and “hostages.” He says they could be pardoned within “nine minutes” after he sits in the Oval Office on January 20.
January 6, 2021, was “a day of love,” according to the president-elect. More than 1,500 people who have been criminally charged in connection with a mob’s assault on the Capitol — fuelled by his bogus narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen from him — are now awaiting potential pardons for alleged crimes live-streamed to millions of viewers.
Defendants, many of whom have been banned from Washington, D.C., are increasingly asking judges for permission to attend Trump’s inauguration, while judges have quietly been raising alarms about looming pardons for some of the worst offenders.
Trump could issue mass amnesty to hundreds of defendants as soon as his first day in office, maintaining that even violent offenders could be granted clemency on a “case-by-case” basis.
The scale of legal absolution for January 6 defendants is still unclear, though his promised clemency and his re-election itself mark a symbolic victory for the movement that threatened to derail an American election.
In 2023, Trump appeared noncommittal about whether he would pardon some of the defendants charged with more serious crimes
“I don’t know. I’ll have to look at their case,” he said. “But I will say in Washington, D.C., you cannot get a fair trial, you cannot. Just like in New York City, you can’t get a fair trial either.”
Asked by NBC correspondent Kristen Welker after his election victory about the nearly 200 people who have pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement, Trump said “they had no choice.”
“Look, I know the system,” Trump said. “The system’s a very corrupt system.”
Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers
The leader of the far-right anti-government militia group was sentenced to 18 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Stewart Rhodes and Oath Keepers members spent weeks discussing plans for their response to the 2020 election on encrypted messaging apps, then organized a weapons and supply cache at a nearby hotel before joining the mob.
Rhodes did not enter the building that day, but the founder of the group “not only contributed to the attack on the Capitol but helped to organize it,” federal prosecutors wrote in court filings.
Enrique Tarrio and the Proud Boys
Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the neo-fascist group, and three of his lieutenants who stormed the halls of Congress were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the attack. A jury did not reach a verdict for a fifth member of the group who was on trial.
Tarrio wasn’t even in Washington, D.C. on January 6, but the former leader and his allies “saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it,” according to federal prosecutors.
He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Joe Biggs was sentenced to 17 years, Zach Rehl to 15 years, and Dominic Pezzola — who smashed through a Capitol window with a police shield and lit up a cigar in celebration — received 10 years.
After sobbing and pleading for leniency at his sentencing hearing, Pezzola raised his fist and shouted “Trump won” as he was escorted out of the courtroom.
The J6 Choir
At his campaign rallies, Trump played a recording from a group of January 6 defendants in a Washington, D.C., jail singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” through a prison phone. Trump produced the song, and sales have been used to pay for their legal aid.
Members of the so-called J6 Choir have not been identified, but federal prosecutors have said in court filings that they “were so violent that their pretrial release would pose a danger to the public.” Department of Corrections rosters list 20 defendants jailed in connection with January 6, including 17 who are accused of assaulting law enforcement officers.
One of those men, Shane Jenkins, is accused of hurling “nine different objects” at police officers, “including a solid wooden desk drawer ... a flagpole, a metal walking stick, and a broken wooden pole with a spear-like point,” according to federal prosecutors. He was sentenced to 84 months in prison.
Jonathan G. Mellis, who was sentenced to 51 months in prison, used a “large wooden stick like a sword and stabbed at the faces and heads of officers at least five times, violently striking some officers in the face, head, neck, and body area,” according to prosecutors.
David Dempsey
A California man who attacked police officers with his hands, feet, a flagpole, crutches, pepper spray and pieces of furniture was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
David Dempsey, a former construction worker and restaurant employee, “was one of the most violent rioters, during one of the most violent stretches of time, at the scene of the most violent confrontations at the Capitol,” prosecutors wrote in court filings.
He was accused of treating the crowd as “human scaffolding” as he climbed over rioters to face off against police, “swinging pole-like weapons more than 20 times, spraying chemical agents at least three times, hurling objects at officers at least 10 times, stomping on the heads of police officers as he perched above them five times, attempting to steal a riot shield and baton, and incessantly hurling threats and insults at police while rallying other rioters to join his onslaught,” prosecutors wrote.
Peter Schwartz
The Pennsylvania rioter was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he was found guilty on 10 charges for throwing a chair at officers and spraying them with pepper spray.
Daniel Rodriguez
Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone’s body camera captured him screaming in pain while Daniel Rodriguez hit him with a stun gun. He later shot a fire extinguisher at officers and shoved a wooden pole into a police line.
In an interview with federal agents, he described himself as a “f****ing piece of s***” and regreted falling for the “joke” theory that the attack could stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
After a judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison, he screamed “Trump won” as he was led out of the courtroom.
Thomas Webster
The retired New York City police officer tackled an officer and grabbed his gas mask while wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a Marine Corps flag on a metal pole. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Brian Sicknick’s attackers
Julian Khater pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting officers for spraying Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and another officer with a chemical irritant. He was sentenced to 80 months in prison with credit for 22 months of time served. Khater’s co-defendant, George Tanios, was also sentenced to time served.
Sicknick died of a stroke one day after the attack.
Richard “Bigo” Barnett
Richard “Bigo” Barnett — whose defense attorneys compared to “everyone’s crazy redneck uncle from out of town” — left a “nasty” note for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before putting his feet up on her desk. “Hey Nancy, Bigo was here you biotch,” he wrote, according to court filings.
He phoned into his trial, calling the proceedings a “bunch of crap” and accused prosecutors of “dragging this out.”
The retired firefighter was convicted on eight counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, and sentenced to roughly four years in prison.
‘Zip tie guy’ and his mother
A mother-and-son duo who carried zip ties as they searched for lawmakers after breaching the Capitol were convicted on obstruction and conspiracy charges. Eric Munchel – who was also armed with a Taser – was additionally found guilty of disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and unauthorized possession of a deadly or dangerous weapon on Capitol grounds. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
His mother Lisa Marie Eisenhart was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
As they made their way into the Senate gallery, with Munchel shouting “I want that f****** gavel,” the pair wondered aloud where the “traitors” and “cowards” who evacuated the chamber had gone. Prosecutors said the pair were looking for “potential hostages.”
Gina Bisignano
In one rioter’s footage of the attack, a voice over a megaphone can be heard yelling about “Trumpy bear” before helping rioters smash through a glass window and crawl through it.
“You are not going to take away our Trumpy bear!” Gina Bisignan yelled. “They are not going to take our Trumpy bear! They will not take away our Trumpy bear! We love you, President Trump!”
The California beautician — who was pictured with makeup streaming down her cheeks behind aviator sunglasses after being hit with a chemical irritant — withdrew her guilty pleas for a number of charges and will face a new trial in 2025.
Robert Scott Palmer
A rioter clad in a stars-and-stripes jacket was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2021 after pleading guilty to assaulting police officers with a fire extinguisher, a plank and a pole.
He was the first rioter to be sentenced on a charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous or deadly weapon, and received the longest sentenced at the time.
“I was caught up in the moment,” he said from prison.
Trump could have stopped him, he said.
“He could have tampered it down a bit,” he told Voice of America. “If he didn’t say, ‘We’re going to go up there, and we are not going to let this election happen,’ I wouldn’t have gone.”
