What to Know About Trump’s Broad Grant of Clemency to Jan. 6 Rioters

President Trump granted two types of clemency on Monday to all of the nearly 1,600 people who faced prosecution for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

He issued formal pardons to more than 1,550 rioters charged with a wide range of crimes, starting at the low end with trespassing and disorderly conduct and increasing in severity to assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.

Mr. Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 members of two far-right groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia. Most of those defendants were convicted on sedition charges and were serving prison terms of up to 18 years. Under the commutations, their sentences will be reduced to time served.

In a separate but related move, Mr. Trump ordered his Justice Department to dismiss any criminal indictments that remained pending against Jan. 6 defendants. And he directed the Bureau of Prisons to “immediately implement” his clemency grants, meaning that the 240 or so rioters behind bars could be released as early as Monday night.

Misdemeanor Defendants

Mr. Trump’s pardons covered about 1,000 nonviolent offenders — the largest single group granted clemency. Those defendants breached the restricted grounds of the Capitol or illegally entered the building itself, but were never accused of breaking anything or hurting anyone.

But even though they may not have committed acts of violence, a federal appeals court has ruled that each person who joined the mob on Jan. 6, “no matter how modestly behaved,” still contributed to the chaos at the Capitol.

Couy Griffin, a former local official from Otero County, N.M., was typical of defendants like this. Mr. Griffin, the founder of a group called Cowboys for Trump, was found guilty of illegally climbing over walls in the restricted grounds of the Capitol and sentenced to 14 days in prison.

Two years ago, Mr. Griffin was removed from his post after a trial under the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding office. He was the first public official to be removed that way in more than a century.

Assault Cases

More than 600 rioters were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers at the Capitol, nearly 175 of whom were accused of doing so with deadly or dangerous weapons including baseball bats, two-by-fours, crutches, hockey sticks and broken wooden table legs.

The assault defendants have been sentenced to some of the longest prison terms of any of the Jan. 6 rioters. David Dempsey, a member of the Proud Boys from California, received the stiffest penalty for assault — 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Mr. Dempsey engaged in a sustained attack against multiple officers at the Capitol, using his hands, his feet, a flagpole, crutches, pepper spray and broken pieces of furniture.

Mr. Dempsey was so aggressive on Jan. 6 that at one point he assaulted a fellow rioter who was trying to disarm him. He also stood beside a gallows outside the Capitol and called for the hanging of prominent Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama.

Conspiracy Cases

The most prominent defendant convicted of conspiracy charges and pardoned by Mr. Trump was Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy at a trial with four of his lieutenants.

Mr. Tarrio’s situation on Jan. 6 was fairly unique. He was not in Washington that day, having been kicked out of the city days earlier by a local judge presiding over separate criminal charges brought against him for vandalizing a Black church a month before the Capitol attack.

Still, prosecutors said Mr. Tarrio kept in touch with compatriots as they assumed positions in the vanguard of the mob and played a central role in both committing violence and encouraging others to engage in violence at the Capitol.

Mr. Trump used a different method to grant clemency to Mr. Tarrio’s co-defendants in the sedition trial — Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zach Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, who is best known for having shattered one of the first windows at the Capitol with a stolen police riot shield. Mr. Trump commuted their sentences, reducing them from as much as 18 years in prison to time served. And he did the same for a former Proud Boy named Jeremy Bertino, who turned on his compatriots and testified against them at the trial.

Mr. Trump also commuted the 18-year sedition sentence imposed on Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, another far-right group that was instrumental in the riot. Eight other members of the Oath Keepers — most of them convicted of seditious conspiracy — had their sentences commuted as well.