On January 20, 2025, during the first day of his second term, United States president Donald Trump granted blanket clemency to all people, nearly 1,600, convicted of or awaiting trial or sentencing for offenses related to the January 6 United States Capitol attack that occurred near the end of his first presidential term. Most of them received full pardons, while the sentences of 14members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were commuted. More than 600rioters had been convicted of or pleaded guilty to assault of or obstructing law enforcement officers and 170of using a deadly weapon.

Multiple January 6 defendants have since been involved in additional crimes after being pardoned including homicide, burglary, theft, stalking, child pornography, sexual assault on minors, and driving under the influence. By June 2026, at least 97 defendants had been arrested and charged with other crimes, accounting for approximately 1 in every 16 Capitol attack defendants.

Background

In the aftermath of his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden, Trump repeatedly made false claims that widespread electoral fraud had occurred and that only he himself had legitimately won the election. Although most resulting lawsuits were either dismissed or ruled against by numerous courts, Trump nonetheless conspired with his campaign team to submit documents in several states (all of which had been won by Biden) which falsely claimed to be legitimate electoral certificates for President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. After the submission of these documents, the Trump campaign intended that the presiding officer of the United States Senate, either President of the Senate Pence or President pro tempore Chuck Grassley, would claim to have the unilateral power to reject electors during the January 6, 2021, vote counting session; the presiding officer would reject all electors from the several states in which the Trump campaign had submitted false documents, leaving 232votes for Trump and 222 for Biden, thereby overturning the election results in favor of Trump. The plans for January6 failed to come to fruition after Pence refused to follow the campaign's proposals.

Trump nevertheless urged his supporters on to march to the Capitol while the joint session of Congress was assembled there to count electoral votes and formalize Biden's victory, culminating with hundreds storming the building and interrupting the electoral vote count.

By the end of 2021, 725people had been charged with federal crimes. That number rose to 1,000 by the second anniversary of the attack, to 1,200 by the third anniversary (three-quarters of whom had by then been found guilty) and to 1,500 before the fourth anniversary. The Justice Department documented assaults on over 140police officers and property damage exceeding million to the Capitol building and grounds. Approximately 170defendants had been accused of using deadly or dangerous weapons against law enforcement officers, including fire extinguishers and bear spray.

Throughout the Biden administration, Trump characterized the January6 defendants as "political prisoners" and "hostages." He promoted a revisionist history of the event by downplaying the severity of the violence and spreading conspiracy theories. House Republicans also spread a fringe conspiracy that the FBI orchestrated the attack. On , when over 760people had been charged, Trump said at a Texas rally that he would be inclined to pardon the rioters if reelected in 2024, which he repeated at a Tennessee rally in June2022. In November, four days before the midterm elections, he said: "Let them all go now!" On he said he would be "inclined to pardon many of them" while hedging by saying "a couple of them, probably, they got out of control". On he said in an interview that aired two days later: "I'm going to look at them, and I certainly might [pardon them] if I think it's appropriate."

Then-representative Adam Schiff, who served on the House committee that investigated the attack and was the lead manager during Trump's first impeachment trial, told MSNBC in February2022 that Trump's offer of pardons suggested that he "condoned" the violence. Representative Pete Aguilar, who was also on the committee, told CNN the same day that he considered Trump's offer to be witness tampering.

On as president–elect, Trump said in an interview with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, that he would pardon the rioters on his "first day" in office except for any he might deem to be "radical, crazy." Then-vice president–elect JD Vance stated that pardons should be given to those who "protested peacefully", and not those who did so violently. Vance initially advocated for a blanket pardon in private but thought Trump would not want to pursue one for political reasons, and was reportedly "100% behind" Trump's decision to grant clemency to all rioters. A week following the pardon, Vance told Face the Nation that he and Trump perceived a "massive denial of due process of liberty" and that the pardon was the "right decision".

Presidential clemency On January 20, 2025, Trump issued a proclamation titled "Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021". The proclamation categorized prior criminal proceedings as a "grave national injustice" against the American people, and positioned the pardons as beginning a "process of national reconciliation". Two inside sources stated that Trump made the decision to give blanket pardons at the "last minute" just days before the inauguration, with one advisor saying Trump said "Fuck it: Release 'em all".

Citing Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States, the proclamation established two distinct categories of clemency for individuals involved in the events at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. The first category of clemency consisted of sentence commutations to time served for fourteen named individuals. These commutations applied to prominent figures in the January 6 events, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes with members Kelly Meggs and Roberto Minuta, Proud Boys leaders Ethan Nordean, Jeremy Bertino, and Joseph Biggs, and Proud Boy member Dominic Pezzola, who was the first rioter to breach the Capitol building, all of whom had their sentences reduced to time served "as of January 20, 2025". The second category consisted of "full, complete, and unconditional" pardons granted to every other defendant convicted in relation to the events of January 6.

The Attorney General was directed to immediately issue pardon certificates to all eligible individuals and ensure the release of any incarcerated persons affected by the pardons. Additionally, the United States Department of Justice was ordered to dismiss "with prejudice" all pending indictments related to January 6 conduct, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons received explicit orders to implement all Justice Department instructions regarding both the releases and the dismissal of pending cases.

Further pardons On May 13, 2025, Ed Martin announced he would serve as the DOJ Pardon Attorney. On May 22, Peter Ticktin of the American Rights Alliance recommended that Martin pursue full pardons for Rhodes, Biggs, Nordean, Rehl and Pezzola, as well as for two other January 6 defendants (Dan Wilson and Elias Costianes) who were in prison for unrelated charges.

On November 9, 2025, Martin announced that Trump had also pardoned the "Alternate Electors of 2020". The list of 77 people who were pardoned included Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Mark Meadows, Boris Epshteyn and Jeffrey Clark. As none of the 77 were facing federal charges, the pardon was symbolic.

Affected

Notable pardons granted

Gained positions

Jared Lane Wise, who had been an FBI supervisory agent from 2004 through 2017, was arrested in Oregon on misdemeanor charges in May 2023 related to the attack on the Capitol. According to an FBI agent's affidavit, Wise repeatedly shouted "Kill 'em!" as he watched rioters assault officers outside the Capitol. Wise entered the Capitol through the Senate wing door and remained in the building for around nine minutes. Police body camera footage captured Wise berating officers outside the Capitol, shouting: "Shame on you! I'm former law enforcement. You're disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo. You can't see it." After his pardon, he became a counselor to Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin who was overseeing the new Weaponization Working Group investigating the FBI. Wise helped draft a report, but no report was ever made public. Martin left the group in February 2026, and soon after, Wise left the government entirely. In an X post in April, Wise said he still hoped "to fully expose the abuses by the FBI and DOJ against J6 defendants, but it became clear that this will only happen from outside of government." Elias Irizarry was appointed to a position in the United States Department of Justice; Joel Valdez, the acting press secretary for the Pentagon, stated that Irizarry "is a qualified, patriotic young professional, and we are proud to have him as a political appointee". At the time of the Capitol attack, Irizarry was a 19-year-old student at The Citadel, a senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina. Following his participation in the riot, Irizarry pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, for which he was sentenced to 14 days of incarceration.

Organizers Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys who had been serving a 22-year sentence for charges including seditious conspiracy. Alan Hostetter, retired police chief, sentenced in December 2023 to 11 years in prison for conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. He drove to Washington with hatchets, knives, stun batons, pepper spray, and other gear for himself and others and used a bullhorn to encourage rioters to break the police line.

Rioters sentenced for attacking police officers David Nicholas Dempsey, sentenced in August 2024 to 20 years in prison for stomping on police officers' heads, using flagpoles and other objects to attack officers, and spraying bear spray into the gas mask of an officer. His prior criminal record included burglary, theft, and assault. Peter Schwartz, sentenced in May 2023 to 14 years to assaulting police officers with a chair and pepper spray. He boasted in a text message that he had "thrown the first chair at cops" and "started a riot". He also had a record of prior violent offenses. Daniel Joseph "DJ" Rodriguez, sentenced in 2023 to 12.5 years in prison for conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of justice, and assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Rodriguez had shot Officer Michael Fanone, who had been dragged into the mob by another assailant and was lying face-down on the ground, twice with a stun gun held to his neck. Fanone suffered a heart attack and other injuries during the attack. Video footage also showed Rodriguez deploying a fire extinguisher and attacking other officers with a wooden pole. Christopher Joseph Quaglin, member of the Proud Boys, sentenced in May 2024 by a Trump-appointed judge to 12 years in prison for choking and tackling officer Michael Fanone to the ground, attacking other officers with metal bike racks, stolen police shields, and pepper spray. Thomas Webster, retired police officer, sentenced in 2022 to 10 years in prison for attacking an officer with a flagpole and tackling him. Christopher J. Worrell, a Proud Boy member, sentenced in 2024 to 10 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray.