Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes have been released from prison after their lengthy sentences for seditious conspiracy convictions in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol were wiped away by a sweeping order from President Trump benefiting more than 1,500 defendants.
Rhodes and Tarrio were two of the highest-profile Jan. 6 defendants and received some of the longest sentences in what became the largest investigation in Justice Department history.
Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, was serving an 18-year prison sentence and Tarrio, of Miami, was serving a 22-year sentence after they were convicted of orchestrating plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Their attorneys confirmed to the Associated Press on Tuesday they had been released hours after Trump pardoned, commuted the sentences of or ordered the dismissal of cases against all 1,500-plus people who were charged with federal crimes in the riot.
Trump’s action, which he had vowed during his campaign, paved the way for the release from prison of extremist group leaders convicted in major conspiracy cases, as well people convicted of violent attacks on law enforcement.
The pardons were a culmination of Trump’s years-long campaign to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack, which left more than 100 police officers injured as the angry mob of Trump supporters — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — overwhelmed law enforcement, shattered windows and sent lawmakers and aides running into hiding.
While pardons were expected, the speed and the scope of the clemency amounted to a stunning dismantling of the Justice Department’s effort to hold participants accountable over what has been described as one of the darkest days in the country’s history.
Former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who lost consciousness and suffered a heart attack after a rioter shocked him with a stun gun, appeared taken aback to learn from an Associated Press reporter that those who assaulted police officers are among the pardon recipients.
“This is what the American people voted for,” he said. “How do you react to something like that?”
Fanone said he has spent the past four years worried about his safety and the well-being of his family. Pardoning his assailants only compounds his fears, he said.
“I think they’re cowards,” he said. “Their strength was in their numbers and the mob mentality. And as individuals, they are who they are.”
Casting the rioters as “patriots” and “hostages,” Trump has claimed they were unfairly treated by the Justice Department, which also charged him with federal crimes in two cases he contends were politically motivated. Trump said the pardons will end “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years” and begin “a process of national reconciliation.”
Trump in May became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
He was sentenced this month to no punishment in his historic hush money case, a judgment that let him return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine. He has vowed to appeal.
Richer and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. Los Angeles Times staff contributed to this report.