WASHINGTON, Jan 21 — President Donald Trump yesterday pardoned nearly everyone criminally charged with participating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, in a show of solidarity with supporters who stormed the seat of American power in his name.
The act effectively wipes away legal consequences for all but 14 of the nearly 1,590 people charged over the riot. The exceptions, members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers organisations, had their sentences ended early and will be released from federal prison.
Trump also directed the US attorney general to drop all pending cases related to the riot.
"These people have been destroyed," Trump, a Republican, said shortly after returning to the Oval Office for the first time since the end of last year. "What they've done to these people is outrageous."
The moves fulfill a campaign promise by Trump to aid supporters who were charged and in many cases imprisoned for crimes committed during the riot, a failed attempt to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.
A White House proclamation called the investigation into the riot a "grave national injustice" and said the pardons would begin a "process of national reconciliation”.
Some federal inmates serving January 6-related sentences could be released as soon as today, a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said.
Thousands descended on the Capitol in 2021 following an incendiary speech by Trump, tearing down barricades, fighting police and sending lawmakers and Trump's vice-president Mike Pence running for their lives as they met to formalise the election result.
The list of pardon recipients include Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy, the longest of anyone criminally charged in the riot. Tarrio was found guilty of plotting to violently oppose the transfer of power after the 2020 election.
— Reuters
