Bipartisan Majority Against Blanket January 6 Pardons

As part of a flurry of executive orders on his first day back in office, President Donald J. Trump issued blanket pardons and commutations to the nearly 1,600 January 6 rioters federally charged with crimes associated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s order undid years of work by the Justice Department in one fell swoop, effectively putting an end to what has been described as the largest criminal inquiry in the DOJ’s 155-year history.

To the surprise of many, including his own vice president, Trump also granted clemency to protesters who committed violent crimes, including those who violently assaulted police officers on January 6, many of whom had been sentenced to time in prison. Trump also pardoned the people behind the attack, including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

The decision to pardon all January 6 defendants drew immediate criticism from experts, who fear that they could encourage similar incidents in the future. “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,” Alexis Loeb, a former federal prosecutor who supervised many riot cases, said to the New York Times. “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.”

As our chart shows, Loeb is not alone in her critical view of the sweeping pardons. A December 2024 survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of the bipartisan States United Democracy Center found that roughly two thirds of Americans, including more than 50 percent of Republicans, disagreed with pardoning violent January 6 protesters. The survey found that people were significantly more open to the idea of pardoning protesters who committed non-violent on January 6, with 44 percent of all respondents in favor of clemency and 35 percent of respondents opposed to it. In a separate January 2025 survey, 54 percent of respondents expressed the fear that pardoning those who took part in political violence would encourage more the same in the future.