They were sure of it. For a week, they had been exulting and talking about leaving. Ready to finally leave the cells where they were serving the sentences received for their actions, sometimes extremely violent, during the attack on the Capitol four years ago, on January 6, 2021, perceived as an attack on the sanctuary of American democracy. In front of the Washington DC detention center, where around thirty of them were incarcerated, their loved ones repeated every evening, during an incantatory vigil, to have a “blind trust” in Donald Trump, to be convinced that what they considered to be a «injustice» or a “perversion of justice” was going to be repaired as soon as the Republican returned to the White House. They were right to be optimistic. Monday evening, just hours after being inaugurated the 47th President of the United States, and just sitting in the chair of the Oval Office, Donald Trump confirmed having granted his presidential pardon to most of the rioters, “the hostages of J6”as he had baptized them.
The new president signed a presidential decree, one of the hundred initialed in the evening, granting presidential pardon to the insurgents. “It’s for January 6, for the hostages, around 1,500 people who will be completely pardoned”he declared, affixing his signature to the decree. “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice inflicted on the American people over the past four years and begins a process of national reconciliation”it is written in the official text of the decree, published by the White House.
The pardon benefits all those convicted for participation in the assault on the Capitol, with the exception of 14, whose sentence is commuted to prison time already served. These are members of the hard-line far-right movements Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, whose founder of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. All the others, including the former leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, sentenced in September 2023 to 22 years in prison, the heaviest sentence handed down for the assault on the Capitol, received a full pardon. The decree also cancels the proceedings still pending against a few hundred people.
Merciless
“We hope they will come out tonight”even specified Donald Trump while repeating that the Capitol insurgents had “been treated very unfairly”. “The judges were absolutely merciless. The prosecutors too”. Immediately, supporters of the insurgents imprisoned in Washington DC rushed to the detention center, located in the east of the capital, convinced that they would be released from prison this Monday evening. But at the end of the evening, when the cold became truly polar, the prison doors still remained firmly closed. A father and his two daughters, who did not want to give their identity, walk in front of the red brick building, heavily lit by floodlights. Originally from Indiana, they were present at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. They returned to Washington on January 20 for the inauguration of “their president”and even had tickets for the ceremony. Moving the swearing-in ceremony inside the Capitol upended their plans. They finally spent fourteen hours, the last two of which were in front of the prisonto trample in the cold, “to provide our support to the hostages”. “These hours in the cold are nothing compared to what they experience inside”they explain, biting into a slice of quickly cooled pizza.
As the hours pass and nothing happens, a certain agitation seizes the supporters who, in front of the cameras and microphones of the journalists present in large numbers, deplore the fact that the Bureau of Prisons, in charge of the administration of detained, seems “disobey the instruction to forgive”. One of them explains having learned that Jake Lang, incarcerated a few meters from them, would have been “attack” and handcuffed by prison guards.
-And then, shortly after 11:00 p.m., a movement, a hubbub shakes the crowd. A man in a suit, tie and red scarf around his neck steps in front of the microphones and introduces himself as a White House liaison officer. He solemnly announces that, “in accordance with the presidential decree signed this Monday by President Trump.two inmates are preparing to leave the prison. Applause, whistles, it's a party.
Barely had the pardon been officially signed, the former Democratic President of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, reacted with dismay. Present at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, she was outraged in a press release against a “insult to the judicial system” American and accused the new Republican president of having been guilty of “of abandonment and betrayal of the police officers who risked their lives to stop an attempt to subvert the transfer of powers”.
Updated at 5:55 a.m. with announcement of the imminent release of two detainees
