- Following his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump issued full commutations and pardons to those indicted and/or sentenced in relation to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
- The order explicitly granted clemency for nine members of the Oath Keepers and five members of the Proud Boys, two well-known violent extremist groups.
- The Proud Boys, in particular, have been involved in nearly 70 anti-LGBTQ incidents since June 2022, according to GLAAD’s ALERT Desk. These include 50+ protests mainly targeting drag shows and local school boards — and resulting in at least four violent altercations.
- The Jan 6th Insurrection led to the injury of approximately 140 law enforcement officers and caused more than $2.9 million in damages, as well as disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.
- At least 1,575 people have been charged federally for their role in the Jan 6th insurrection, with those sentenced receiving a median prison time of 240 days. While the Department of Justice has pulled down the publicly available dataset detailing charges against Jan 6th defendants, NPR maintains a complete database here.
- The Jan 6th pardons are wildly unpopular with the American people. AP’s reporting shows only 2 in 10 US adults are in favor and more than half oppose.
- The Department of Justice has also fired officials who worked on the criminal cases against Donald Trump and launched investigations into other “political opponents,” as part of Trump’s new Executive Order “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
For more information on the dangers of Trump’s pardons, see our full article here.