When Donald Trump was re-elected US president, many of his opponents breathed a sigh of relief because at least there would be a peaceful transition of power and no repeat of the insurrection of January 6th, 2021. But nearly 1,600 of those insurrectionists – including leaders of right-wing militias and hundreds found guilty of violent offences – are now trickling out of American prisons. They are beneficiaries of a presidential pardon or clemency that he granted on his first day in office. While Trump’s election reduced the chances for political violence in the short term, this act dramatically increases them in the long term.
He granted clemency even to the most violent of the January 6th offenders, including 69 who attacked police with deadly weapons. These include Daniel Rodriguez, who drove a stun gun into a police officer’s neck leading him to suffer a heart attack. Rodriguez was described by the judge who sentenced him to 11 years in prison as a “one-man army of hate”.
He also freed more than 300 prisoners with known ties to far-right organisations, including Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the neofascist militia Proud Boys, who was convicted for 21 years for sedition and described as the insurrection’s foremost instigator. They also include Stuart Rhodes, founder of the far-right militia, the Oath Keepers, who days afterwards was recorded saying that his “only regret” was that they “should have brought rifles” to the Capitol and wished they had hanged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “from a lamp-post”.
Trump has legitimised right-wing terrorism. By releasing these insurrectionists, he has unleashed his most violent supporters who now believe they can act with impunity. Imagine this scenario: during the 2026 or 2028 election, Trump reports false accounts of Democratic voter fraud in a key battleground state, perhaps in a predominantly Latino or African American precinct. He instructs loyal citizens to investigate. Maga supporters go to the polling places, many toting guns. They intimidate, assault, even murder those simply exercising their right to vote. They do so realistically expecting that any crimes they commit will receive presidential pardons.
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How chilling that such a scenario is no longer far-fetched. It is a telling example of how the American constitution’s vaunted system of “checks and balances” cannot restrain many of Trump’s most authoritarian impulses. A president’s right to pardon or grant clemency is absolute, and the supreme court, in an outrageous 2024 decision, gave the president “absolute” immunity from prosecution from discharging “official duties”. Under the cover of concern for voter fraud, he can incite violence as in the fictional scenario above without fear of facing criminal consequences.
Some believed vice-president JD Vance and attorney general Pam Bondi when they promised Trump would not release the most violent of January 6th insurrectionists. Yet, though shocking, it should have come as little surprise that he did. After all, he opened his first campaign rally by playing a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner performed by those jailed for their actions during January 6th. He subsequently described those imprisoned as “martyrs”.
[ The new history of January 6th, 2021: From extremist attack to ‘day of love’Opens in new window ]
He will continue to rewrite the history of what he called a “day of love” on the campaign trail. He recasts insurrectionists as patriots who tried to stop the supposed fraud that he feels cost him the 2020 election: they were not assaulting democracy, they were defending it. Their crimes, Trump said in a recent television interview, were only “very minor incidents”.
The Maga base now treats January 6th insurrectionists as heroes. One Maga Congresswoman is giving them guided tours of the US Capitol. Trump has said he’s open to hosting them in the White House. Asked by a reporter about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and whether there was a place for them in politics, he replied: “Well, we have to see. They’ve been given a pardon. I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”
Trump proclaimed that his pardons ended “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation”. His language of “reconciliation” recalls the pardoning of Southerners who took up arms against the United States during the civil war by president Andrew Johnson. Those pardons helped enable former Confederates to rewrite the history of the Civil War as a noble “lost cause” that was about states’ rights, not the defence of slavery. Given the large number of neo-Confederates among the January 6th insurrectionists – the Confederate flag was prominently displayed that day – this resonance may be deliberate on Trump’s part.
Only a relatively small minority of Americans approve of the kind of political violence that happened on January 6th
The president’s support of right-wing political violence might lead one to think the US is fast on its way to becoming a fascist state. Yet only 24 per cent of Americans in a recent poll approve of the release of violent insurrectionists; not even a majority of Republicans support it. And Trump’s decision may prove even more of a political liability in the future.
Only a relatively small minority of Americans approve of the kind of political violence that happened on January 6th. In addition, letting off the hook those who were captured on video violently attacking police undermines Trump’s attempt to cast himself as a supporter of “law and order”.
He may ultimately pay a political price for these pardons. That may be the only silver lining to this story because neither he – nor the January 6th insurrectionists and future right-wing terrorists who will now expect his pardon – will have to face any judicial consequences for their crimes.
Daniel Geary is Mark Pigott Professor in US History at Trinity College Dublin
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