WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday said he was pardoning about 1,500 of his supporters who have been charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, using his sweeping clemency powers on his first day back in office to dismantle the largest investigation and prosecution in Justice Department history.
The pardons were expected after Trump’s years-long campaign to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack that left more than 100 police officers injured and threatened the peaceful transfer of power. Yet the scope of the clemency still comes as a massive blow to the Justice Department’s effort to hold participants accountable over what has been described as one of the darkest days in American history.
Trump also commuted the prison sentences of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.
The pardon, the full text of which was posted on the White House web site, said, in part, it would:
- "grant a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021."
and - "The Attorney General shall administer and effectuate the immediate issuance of certificates of pardon to all individuals described in section (b) above, and shall ensure that all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, who are currently held in prison are released immediately. The Bureau of Prisons shall immediately implement all instructions from the Department of Justice regarding this directive."
There was no word on specific individual cases involving Southwest Florida participants such as Christopher Worrell from Naples. Worrell, 53, is currently held at the low security Federal Correctional Institution Butner Low in Butner, North Carolina and was originally scheduled for release in 2031.
Worrell, a Florida Proud Boy, was sentenced in January 2024 to 10 years in prison on multiple felony counts that included assaulting police officers with a deadly and dangerous weapon during the Jan. 6. Capitol breach. He later became a fugitive to avoid sentencing, triggering a 6-week manhunt.
Trump had suggested in the weeks leading up to his return to the White House that he was going to look at the Jan. 6 defendants on a case-by-case basis. Vice President JD Vance had said just days ago that people responsible for the violence during the Capitol riot “obviously” should not be pardoned.
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- Text of Trump's pardon
Casting the rioters as “patriots” and “hostages,” Trump has claimed they were unfairly treated by the Justice Department that also charged him with federal crimes in two cases he contends were politically motivated.
The pardons come weeks after Trump’s own Jan. 6 case was dismissed because of the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Had Trump lost the 2024 election, he may have ultimately stood trial in the same federal courthouse within view of the Capitol where Jan. 6 cases have been playing out over the last four years.
More than 1,200 people have been convicted in the riot, including approximately 250 people convicted of assault charges.
Hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants who didn’t engage in any of the violence and destruction were charged with misdemeanor trespassing offenses, and many of those served little to no time behind bars.
But the violence that day has been documented extensively through videos, testimony and other evidence showing rioters — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — swarming the Capitol, quickly overrunning overwhelmed police, shattering windows and sending lawmakers and aides running into hiding.
Police were dragged into the crowd and beaten. One officer screamed in pain as he was crushed in a doorframe, and another suffered a heart attack after a rioter pressed a stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him. Officers have described in testimony fearing for their lives as members of the mob hurled insults and obscenities at them.
Of the more than 1,500 people charged, about 250 people have been convicted of crimes by a judge or a jury after a trial. Only two people were acquitted of all charges by judges after bench trials. No jury has fully acquitted a Capitol riot defendant. At least 1,020 had pleaded guilty to crimes as of Jan. 1.
More than 1,000 rioters have already been sentenced, with over 700 receiving at least some time behind bars. The rest were given some combination of probation, community service, home detention or fines.
In Worrell's case, according to the government’s evidence, he plotted his trip to D.C. with other Proud Boys from the “Hurricane Coast” for weeks leading up to January 6, participating in conversations in which the police were called traitors and Proud Boys brainstormed ways to disrupt the certification. Consistent with this planning, Worrell arrived in in the District ready for battle, wearing body armor, and carrying two cans of Sabre Red Maximum Strength Pepper Gel and a large radio to coordinate with his Hurricane Coast zone-mates.
Others from Southwest Florida charged in the Capitol breach case include (No information was available on their status after the Trump pardon):
- Lin Marie Carey, 56, charged in a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia with obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony, and misdemeanor offenses of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, parading, picketing, and demonstrating in a Capitol building. The FBI arrested Carey on Feb. 28, 2024, in Naples.
- John Anthony Schubert III, 47, of Bradenton, Florida, who pleaded guilty in 2024 in the District of Columbia to a felony offense of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. In July, Schubert was sentenced to 18 months in prison with 24 months of supervised release and ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution.
- Daniel Lyons Scott, of Englewood, was sentenced in 2023 to 60 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to the Architect of the Capitol by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth. Scott's actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election. Scott plead guilty Feb. 9, 2023, to the felony charges of obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers.
- John Joseph Richter, of Port Charlotte, was convicted of the felony offense of obstruction of an official proceeding. In addition to the felonies, he was convicted of misdemeanor offenses of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, entering and remaining on the floor of Congress, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
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