The Morning: Trump’s pardons
Plus, the war in Ukraine, a winter storm and the nerd Super Bowl.
The Morning

January 22, 2025

Good morning. We’re covering Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons — as well as the war in Ukraine, a winter storm and the nerd Super Bowl.

A gif of clips from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The New York Times

Rewriting Jan. 6

Before Inauguration Day, Donald Trump’s allies indicated that he’d limit clemency for Jan. 6 defendants to nonviolent offenders. “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” JD Vance said this month.

But President Trump’s pardons and commutations, signed on Monday, include people who assaulted police officers with baseball bats and chemical sprays. They include those who plotted to use violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Judges sentenced some of the defendants to prison for decades — a sign of their crimes’ severity.

Trump thought his supporters had been unfairly persecuted. His pardons reflect that view. “To have done anything less would have been an admission that there was something wrong with what his supporters did on Jan. 6,” my colleagues Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer wrote.

Today’s newsletter focuses on some of the Jan. 6 defendants and the crimes for which they now have impunity.

The offenders

A gif slide show of participants in the Jan. 6 riot.

Trump gave clemency to more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Prosecutors had video and photographic evidence of their crimes. The offenders include:

  • Stewart Rhodes and his far-right militia group, the Oath Keepers, helped orchestrate the riot. He and his followers said over text messages beforehand that Chinese agents had infiltrated the U.S. government and that Joe Biden might cede control of the country to the United Nations. Prosecutors said Rhodes had placed a “quick reaction force” of heavily armed Oath Keepers in a Virginia hotel — to rush into Washington with their weapons if called upon. A jury convicted him of seditious conspiracy, which requires proof of violent force against the government. A judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison.
  • Julian Khater blasted chemical spray at a group of officers as the mob overran the police on the west side of the Capitol. One of the officers, Brian Sicknick, died the next day. A judge sentenced Khater to nearly seven years in prison.
  • Albuquerque Cosper Head grabbed Officer Michael Fanone around the neck and told a crowd, “I got one!” Head then dragged Fanone down the Capitol steps and into the mob. Rioters beat, kicked and shot Fanone with a stun gun. A judge sentenced Head to seven and a half years in prison.
  • Daniel Rodriguez fired the stun gun at Fanone’s neck, twice. He also sprayed a fire extinguisher at the police and shoved a wooden pole at a line of officers. A judge called him a “one-man army of hate” and sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison.
  • David Dempsey punched and kicked police officers and attacked them with a flagpole, crutches, broken pieces of furniture and pepper spray. A judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
  • Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, helped plan the attack. (He was not actually at the riot; officers arrested him days earlier for setting fire to a church’s Black Lives Matter banner.) A jury convicted him of seditious conspiracy, and a judge sentenced him to 22 years in prison.

My colleague Alan Feuer detailed the defendants’ crimes, and the type of clemency they received, in this article.

Some of the Jan. 6 defendants have shown no remorse. Days before his sentencing, Rhodes falsely claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that the government was “coming after those on the political right.” At a court hearing, he declared, “I am a political prisoner.”

Undeterred

Trump won’t be able to act as unilaterally in many other areas as he did with these pardons. The president’s pardon powers are unique in that they are virtually unchecked by the Constitution. The same is not true for immigration, taxes, health care, tariffs or other topics that interest Trump. Congress, state governments and the courts will get a say — and they might not want to go as far as the president does.

Yet Trump’s blanket clemency previews an important aspect of his second term: He feels unbound this time around. He believes that the public is behind his agenda, and he’s ready to push it by any means he can.

More coverage

  • “It’s a miscarriage of justice”: Many of the officers injured in the Jan. 6 riot said they felt betrayed.
  • A few Republicans in Congress also criticized Trump’s pardons. “I just can’t agree,” Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said.
  • Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Ulbricht, a Bitcoin pioneer, is a cult hero in the cryptocurrency world.

THE LATEST NEWS

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Marco Rubio raising his hand to take an oath being read by JD Vance.
Marco Rubio and JD Vance Doug Mills/The New York Times

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