Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described as “shameful” President Donald Trump‘s sweeping executive order granting clemency to the 1,500-plus people charged in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The President’s actions are an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution,” she wrote on X on Monday night.
Newsweek contacted Trump’s team for comment by email on Tuesday morning, outside of standard working hours.
Why It Matters
The January 6 insurrection was a defining moment for the nation, with the shocking images of the attack doing the rounds on international media and stoking fears among close allies that American democracy was way more fragile than anyone would have expected.
But four years later, Trump’s pardon wipes away all efforts by federal investigators to establish accountability for the attack.
The president’s pardon of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, suggests that the era of retribution he promised during his 2024 presidential campaign has officially begun.
“The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and government will end,” Trump said during his inauguration speech on Monday.
What To Know
Trump’s pardon of January 6 rioters was expected and even anticipated by those involved in the attack and their supporters.
After Trump’s victory in November, Derrick Evans, a January 6 rioter who was sentenced to three months in prison in June 2022, told Newsweek that he was “100 percent confident President-elect Trump will pardon the nonviolent protesters.” Paula Calloway, who leads the Patriot Mail Project in support of imprisoned rioters, told Newsweek that she expected “pardons for everyone.”
Calloway turned out to have made the best guess. Trump’s executive order covers both those accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses and those who committed violence, including assaulting police officers.
Main image, U.S. President Donald Trump throws sharpies to the crowd after signing executive orders inside the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. Inset, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi… Main image, U.S. President Donald Trump throws sharpies to the crowd after signing executive orders inside the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. Inset, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is seen in New York City on October 24, 2024. ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images; John Lamparski/Getty Images
On January 6, the Justice Department said 1,583 defendants had been federally charged with crimes linked with the attack on the Capitol. Of these, 608 were charged with violent crimes including “assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement agents or officers or obstructing those officers during a civil disorder.”
In a separate move on Monday, the president also commuted the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militias, most of whom were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
The executive order also calls for the Justice Department to dismiss “all pending indictments” remaining against rioters facing charges.
Pardoned January 6 rioters who were serving jail time at the time of the executive order would leave prison on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Pelosi has previously strongly condemned Trump for his reported failure to help stop the violence on January 6, 2021. In an interview with ABC News’ This Week in January 2024, the former Speaker said Trump “incited an insurrection.”
During the January 6 attack on the Capitol, rioter Richard Barnett entered Pelosi’s office with a gun tucked into his pants and propped his feet on her desk. She wasn’t in the room.
What Did Pelosi Say?
On Monday, Pelosi wrote on X and on her website: “It is shameful that the President has decided to make one of his top priorities the abandonment and betrayal of police officers who put their lives on the line to stop an attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power.
“Despite the President’s decision, we must always remember the extraordinary courage and valor of the law enforcement heroes who stood in the breach and ensured that democracy survived on that dark day.”
What Other Executive Orders Did Trump Sign On Monday?
Trump signed a series of executive orders on Monday after being sworn into office, including the one pardoning Jan. 6 rioters. He declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that expands his powers and allows him to unilaterally unlock federal funding to build the border wall and potentially deploy the military and National Guard to the border. In a separate order, he made border security a priority for the military.
Trump also issued an order delaying a federal ban on TikTok for 75 days, despite the fact that the law went into effect on Sunday. Additionally, he withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris climate agreement.
What People Are Saying
Former Capitol police officer Harry Dunn said, as reported by The Guardian: “Today is another dark day in American history and a continuation of the stain that January 6th left on our nation. I am infuriated, but not surprised in the slightest. We can’t pretend to be shocked because Trump has fulfilled his long-standing promise to pardon the criminals he incited to attack me and my fellow officers.”
Alexis Loeb, a former federal prosecutor who supervised many January 6 riot cases, told The New York Times: “These pardons suggest that if you commit acts of violence, as long as you do so on behalf of a politically powerful person you may be able to escape consequences. They undermine—and are a blow to—the sacrifice of all the officers who put themselves in the face of harm to protect democracy on Jan. 6.”
Edward Jacob ‘Jake’ Lang, accused of beating police officers outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, wrote on X: “IM FINALLY COMING HOME!!!! GOD BE MAGNIFIED!!! MOUNTAINS DO REALLY MOVE IN JESUS NAME!!!”
What’s Next
During his campaign in 2024, Trump vowed to prosecute Democrats, election workers, lawmakers and federal investigators who had opposed him—raising concerns that his four years in power might be particularly vindictive.
Before Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Joe Biden issued several preemptive pardons for all members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Capitol riot, including former Rep. Liz Cheney.
