US President Donald Trump has pardoned around 1,500 people, including the leaders of right-wing extremist groups, who were charged with storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The leaders of the groups, known as the “Proud Boys” and “Oathkeepers”, were previously convicted of “seditious conspiracy” and faced prison sentences of 22 and 18 years, respectively. The convicted participants in the Capitol storm, which Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House had described as a “coup”, were referred to by the President as “hostages”.
After the 2020 presidential election, Trump had urged his supporters to come to Washington on January 6, 2021, the day the election results were to be certified by Congress. In a speech, he announced that they would march down the Pennsylvania Avenue and to the Capitol. If they did not fight, they would lose their country. While the congressional session to ratify the election results was underway, his supporters, some of whom were armed, marched to the parliamentary building, overcame the security measures, and entered the session rooms and offices. The session of both parliamentary chambers was interrupted, and the lawmakers were evacuated. Some of them damaged property, and five people lost their lives.
In the face of Trump’s re-election, special investigator Jack Smith, who led the investigation into Trump’s role in the Capitol storm, resigned in November 2024. In his final report, Smith sees enough evidence to convict Trump. “The admissible evidence was sufficient to secure a conviction and to maintain it” the 137-page report states.
In a previously published report, Smith described Trump’s efforts to create a narrative of widespread election fraud during the 2020 election. The special investigator accused Trump of knowing that his depiction was false. According to a report, Trump told a family member on Marine One that it did not matter whether they won or lost the election; they still had to keep fighting. The special investigator also described how Trump refused to call off his supporters during the storm on the Capitol for hours.