Donald Trump’s mass pardon of 1,500 January 6 participants, including the leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, has reinvigorated a weakened U.S. militia movement and empowered white supremacists, experts have warned.
Dr. Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said Trump “brought back two organizations that have extremely long track records of violence” and likened the current moment to the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
“By letting violent white supremacists and militia types who engaged in this activity out of prison he has emboldened those movements, made them more powerful, and given them the sanction of the highest office,” she told The Independent.
And Trump’s pardoning of those charged in the Capitol attack, including 169 people who’d pled guilty to assaulting police, helps create a loyal group of armed followers eager to do his bidding over the next four years.
“If Trump wanted to mobilize them, he could,” Beirich said. “They are now very much allied with Trump because he fulfilled his promise, and they think their vision of society is coming to be.”
After initially condemning the violence at the Capitol, Trump reversed course in the years that followed and now refers to it as a “day of love.” In announcing his pardons, he called the jailed rioters “hostages.”
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a graduate of Yale, was sentenced to 18 years for directing his fellow militia members to stop the certification of the 2020 election. Proud Boys leader Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio received a 22-year sentence for orchestrating the January 6 attack. Both far-Right leaders are now free.
On social media and private Telegram channels, Proud Boys members are already plotting to support Trump’s agenda with armed militia action, according to new research from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
One chapter in Portland expressed hope that they would be “deputized as ICE under Trump’s second term” to help in Trump’s mass deportation plan. In New York, one member claimed to have a “network set up” to send information about illegal immigrants to ICE, and in a Nevada group, Proud Boys shared an image encouraging followers to “report illegal aliens” to ICE along with a picture of a swastika rising like a sun over a landscape, captioned “A new day is about to dawn in America… it’s going to be glorious.”
We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did. They need to pay for what they did
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism said the posts “reveal dangerous plans: assisting in mass deportation efforts, targeting LGBTQ+ communities, and even issuing violent threats against political figures.”
“The rhetoric underscores the growing alignment between extremist groups and government policies under Trump’s administration,” it added.
The joy felt by those released after facing lengthy sentences was palpable at a reunion outside of a Washington D.C. jail on Tuesday evening, where many of the pardoned rioters gathered.
Rhodes was seen shaking hands with members of the Proud Boys, who described themselves as “J6 vets.”
“We worked together a lot in the streets,” Rhodes said of the white supremacist Proud Boys in an interview outside the jail. “We’re yin and yang.”
“The MAGA movement is stronger than ever. And I’m fearless now. I’m not afraid of going to jail,” he added, while thanking President Trump.
Amy Cooter, director of research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, believes Rhodes stands to gain the most from Trump’s commutation.
“He has the potential to sort of regain a legitimized leadership and potentially get along a big following behind him,” she told The Independent.
On Wednesday, he was spotted at Capitol Hill, telling reporters he was there to meet with House Republicans.
“I think that it very well could be the case that some of these folks will be invited to the White House and perhaps made, officially or unofficially, part of the administration, in a way that further legitimizes them,” Cooter said.
“They’re going to have a lot of loyalty to Trump, not only because that’s what brought them to January 6 in the first place, but now he’s effectively positioned himself as their Savior,” she added.
That is far cry from where the groups stood in the aftermath of January 6, with leadership jailed, activities limited and the organizations mainly at a standstill.
“The Oath Keepers were decimated by the January 6 prosecutions. They’ve essentially been doing nothing,” Beirich said.
The Proud Boys had remained active locally, mostly by harassing pride events across the country, but the group “had no central leadership,” she added.
Now with Tarrio released, along with other leaders Joe Biggs and Ethan Nordean, a new era has begun.
“I would expect them to be quite emboldened and start rebuilding their ranks and use Trump’s sanctioning of January 6 as a way to recruit members,” Beirich said. “In other words, I think the Proud Boys are going to be back.”
Trump’s first public acknowledgment of the Proud Boys came during a presidential debate with Joe Biden in 2020, when he told its members to “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn extremist groups who backed him.
When asked by a reporter on Tuesday if there is “now a place for them in the political conversation,” Trump replied: “Well, we have to see.”
Meanwhile, both Rhodes and Tarrio have expressed a desire to go after the prosecutors and witnesses who played a role in securing their convictions.
“I’m happy that the president’s focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I’m not gonna play by those rules,” Tarrio said during an interview with Alex Jones, hours after his release. “The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted.”
Speaking outside the D.C. jail waiting for January 6 prisoners to be released, Rhodes said: “I wanna see the prosecutors prosecuted […] all the cops that lied on the stand investigated, all the cops who used excessive force investigated.”
On Wednesday, audio of Rhodes claiming that protesters inside the Capitol did not commit any crimes was played to Michael Fanone, a former Capitol police officer who suffered a heart attack and brain injuries after being assaulted by rioters.
“This is what I would say to Stewart Rhodes: Go f*** yourself. You’re a liar,” Fanone said live on CNN.
