For dozens of people currently sitting in federal prisons around the country, the election of Donald Trump as president last week meant more than a new political future, it offered a lifeline.
Hundreds of people have been imprisoned over the past four years for their roles in the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Now, with the accused instigator of that insurrection about to take office as president, dozens of violent rioters are pinning their hopes on Trump’s promise to issue pardons for the attack, which he recently called “a day of love.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to the jailed insurrectionists as political prisoners treated unfairly by an unjust system. While he has placed some vague caveats on who he will pardon – he told a conference of Black journalists this summer he would “absolutely” free insurrectionists, “if they’re innocent” – the possibility remains that he will pardon every single Jan. 6 prisoner on the first day of his presidency.
Such a move, or even a more limited swath of pardons, would send a jolt of electricity through America’s far-right ecosystem, including white supremacist groups, the so-called armed “militia“ movement and grifters who have pushed baseless conspiracy theories like QAnon, experts told USA TODAY.
Monitors of extremist groups are waiting and watching to see how extensive Trump’s Jan. 6 clemency campaign becomes. At the least, even a few pardons will send a sign to the country’s far right that its criminal actions on that day were justified, experts told USA TODAY. At its most broad, a sweeping presidential pardon would send a clear message of support and redemption to the groups and individuals who took part in the assault on democracy, said Joan Donovan, founder of the nonprofit group The Critical Internet Studies Institute, whose team has been monitoring extremists’ response to Trump’s election.
“That signals something very dangerous, not just for America, but also for what could eventually turn into a civil war,” Donovan said. “I think that if Trump does pardon some of the more serious vigilantes from January 6, that sends a clear message – that he is building a private army.”
If Trump goes so far as to pardon the leaders of the extremist groups who planned and executed the insurrection – who are serving the longest prison terms for Jan. 6 – that will breathe new life into organizations gutted by prosecutions and cowed by a federal legal system that targeted domestic violent extremists, Donovan said.
“If he does pardon people that are part of those groups, we will see an upsurge in recruitment,” she said. “We’ll also see an upsurge in groups of people that are perhaps rebranding themselves as right-wing movements.”
Can Trump pardon the Jan. 6 rioters?
Trump’s power when it comes to pardoning the Jan. 6 rioters is extraordinarily broad, said Jeffrey Crouch, a law professor at American University and an expert on the pardon process.
“Clemency is a constitutional power, and the president can use it whenever he would like and however much he would like,” Crouch said.
Trump can pardon only federal crimes, not crimes charged by state prosecutors, but that would include anyone prosecuted by the Department of Justice for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
So far, 663 people have been convicted and incarcerated for their roles in the insurrection, according to Luke Baumgartner, a researcher at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism who is tracking the cases. As of Tuesday, 200 people remain imprisoned on Jan. 6 related charges, not including defendants who have been sentenced to prison and assigned to a facility but have not yet reported for their sentence.
Crouch said Trump may seek advice from the DOJ’s Pardon Attorney’s Office, but he doesn’t have to. On Day 1 of his presidency, Crouch explained, Trump could grant sweeping clemency to anybody charged with crimes in the insurrection.
A presidential pardon wouldn’t expunge the records of those released, Crouch explained, but it would set them free – essentially overnight. And, crucially, for the leaders and participants in armed militia groups, a presidential pardon is the only way for a federally convicted felon to regain their legal access to firearms.
Waiting and watching for pardons
The people still imprisoned for Jan. 6 crimes include those serving just a few months for minor crimes, right up to the leaders of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who are serving 22 years and 18 years, respectively, for their roles in a seditious conspiracy.
The Trump campaign has been tight-lipped about who exactly the incoming president plans to pardon.
On two separate occasions, when asked for details, a Trump spokesperson told USA TODAY the president-elect “will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis.”
Social media posts from accounts connected to the incarcerated insurrectionists give some indication of how those still behind bars view the pardon process. The official Telegram channel for the Proud Boys, for example, has been urging members of the street gang not to do anything that might jeopardize the future for their incarcerated colleagues:
“While you may think your efforts are noble or you want to feel that without your efforts DJT won’t follow through with his promise to free the hostages. It will likely have the opposite effect,” reads one post from Nov. 7.
Lawyers for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who is serving 18 years in prison, told USA TODAY they are cautiously optimistic about the possibility of a presidential pardon.
“Stewart was convicted because of the things he said, and he said a lot of things but none of those were a violation of the law,” said Rhodes’ attorney Ed Tarpley. ”So, I think Stewart would be at the top of the list to get a pardon, but we just don’t know how that’s going to work out.”
Meanwhile, Rhodes’ estranged family, who have accused him of years of psychological and physical abuse, are terrified that he will return to seek revenge against them in the small Montana town where they live.
“I’ve been hiding from the world. It’s just a little much,” Rhodes’ ex-wife Tasha Adams told USA TODAY in a text message. “I don’t even know what to do right now.”
Pardons would inject new life into the far-right
The extremist far right in America has had a quiet couple of years.
The first Trump administration saw the birth of a new white supremacist movement dubbed the “alt-right,” which roared to life in 2017 and 2018, spawning racist demonstrations like the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and running street battles between the far right and leftist counterprotesters.
The COVID pandemic saw a unification of far-right groups including armed militias, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists who gathered at anti-government and anti-vaccine protests around the country in defiance of lockdown laws.
And the zenith of America’s burgeoning extremist far-right movement came on Jan. 6 when a crowd of tens of thousands of people including armed militias, white supremacists, Christian supremacists and conspiracy theorists descended on the U.S Capitol in an attempt to block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election.
While conservative politicians, commentators and influencers have since attempted to spin the Capitol attack, in which more than 150 police officers were assaulted, as a peaceful demonstration, the Justice Department and the FBI tracked down and charged more than 1,200 Capitol rioters. Prosecutions of those cases continued even in the days leading up to the election.
The net impact of these prosecutions, combined with a Democratic presidency that promised to root out far-right extremism, led to the splintering of once-popular groups like the Proud Boys. With its founder and leader incarcerated, the Oath Keepers, which once claimed tens of thousands of members, many of them current and former military and law enforcement, also largely fizzled away into insignificance.
But while the popular brands of the far right were struggling to maintain relevance, the sentiment behind their rise never went anywhere.
Throughout the Biden administration, American far-right extremists sought to rebrand themselves, uniting in newly popular culture wars including the fight against trans rights, all-age drag shows and the banning of books highlighting LGBTQ+ issues from schools.
While the Jan. 6 prosecutions had a “chilling effect” on public displays and protests from the extremist far right, presidential pardons will have an opposite effect on the movement, said Katherine Keneally, head of threat analysis and prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
“It certainly has not only the potential to make people less worried about joining, but those releases will also be pretty public,” Keneally said. “People will be very aware of it happening, and that in itself, and that media attention, also has the potential to influence recruitment.”
Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research, reporting and analysis at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which has monitored the extreme right and antigovernment groups for decades, agreed.
When Trump first took office in 2016, he had support from the extremist far right of American politics, Carroll Rivas said, but he didn’t necessarily overtly embrace that support. Recent months have seen Trump turn closer and closer toward his most extreme supporters including QAnon conspiracy theorists and Christian nationalists, and a pardon of Jan. 6 rioters would send a very clear signal, she said.
“The message that sends is that it’s acceptable and that it’s okay, and he welcomes it as part of his coalition,” Carroll Rivas said. “Now that doesn’t mean that Trump says all the exact same things as all those groups – he very much oscillates back and forth on many – but it is clear that they are a part of his coalition, and he was OK with it.”
Of course, Carroll Rivas said, politicians also make a lot of promises during campaigns. It’s possible that Trump backtracks on his pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists or only grants clemency to a handful of nonviolent rioters.
But if Trump sticks true to his word, then nobody should doubt the direction he is taking, she said.
“A pardon sends the message that this wasn’t just a campaign,” she said. “It’s also just who he is, and how he wants to govern.”
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