The former leader of the Proud Boys and the founder of the Oath Keepers have been released from prison after their lengthy sentences for seditious conspiracy in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol were wiped by a sweeping order from President Donald Trump that benefitted more than 1,500 defendants.
Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes were two of the highest-profile January 6 defendants and received some of the harshest punishments in the largest investigation in Justice Department history.
Mr Rhodes, of Texas, was serving an 18-year prison sentence, and Tarrio, of Miami, was serving a 22-year sentence after being convicted of orchestrating plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power following Mr Trump's loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Their lawyers confirmed to AP on Tuesday that they had been released hours after Mr Trump pardoned, commuted the sentences or ordered cases to be dismissed of cases against all of the more than 1,500 people who were charged with federal crimes in the riot.
The action paved the way for the release of extremist group leaders convicted in major conspiracy cases, as well as people who violently attacked law-enforcement officers defending the Capitol.
Mr Trump also ordered the Attorney General to seek the dismissal of about 450 cases that were still pending before judges.
He made rewriting the history of the January 6 attack a centrepiece of his bid to return to the White House, and the pardon of the rioters fulfils a campaign pledge to free defendants he contends were politically persecuted by the Justice Department.
Mr Trump said the pardons would 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”.
More than 1,200 people across the US were convicted of January 6 crimes over the past four years, including about 200 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement. More than a dozen defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil War-era charge and the most serious brought after the January 6 attack.
Mr Tarrio, who led the neo-fascist Proud Boys group as it became a force in mainstream Republican circles, was convicted in 2023 of seditious conspiracy and other crimes after a months-long trial on allegations that he orchestrated violence to overturn Mr Biden's 2020 victory over Mr Trump.
He was not in Washington on January 6 because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors said he organised and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.
Mr Rhodes was convicted in a separate trial alongside members of his far-right militia group who prosecutors alleged were intent on keeping Mr Trump in power at all costs.
Over seven weeks of testimony, jurors heard how Mr Rhodes rallied his followers to fight to defend Mr Trump, discussed the prospect of a “bloody” civil war and warned that the Oath Keepers might have to “rise up in insurrection” to defeat Mr Biden if Mr Trump did not act.
Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who became one of the faces of the Capitol riot because of his red, white and blue face paint, bare chest and unusual horned headgear, welcomed the pardon in a post on X.
“I got a pardon baby! Thank you, President Trump,” wrote Mr Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his role in the attack. He added that he now intended to buy some guns.
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