The events of January 6, 2021, left behind images of rioters storming the Capitol that shocked the world. While the breach itself was a pivotal moment, the aftermath will also have a lasting impact on the American psyche due to a series of legal and political maneuvers that have unjustly affected thousands of individuals. As the defendants await President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 — hopeful for pardons — the current conversation revolves around who should be granted this relief.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who had been convicted on gun charges and pled guilty to tax-related offenses. In the wake of this, former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, questioning whether Hunter Biden’s pardon would extend to the January 6 defendants he described as "hostages."
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Trump wrote:
Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!
Looking back at the prosecutions, the politically charged atmosphere surrounding them, and the legal challenges that have since emerged, one thing becomes obvious: All of the January 6 defendants deserve a pardon.
The cases of these individuals must be viewed in the proper context while acknowledging the political and legal bias, the unconstitutional charges, and the broader environment in which these people acted.
The Unfairness of the Legal Venue and Political Bias
From the moment the Capitol was breached, the political narrative around January 6 was set. The media and politicians were quick to label those involved as "insurrectionists," "domestic terrorists," and enemies of the state. This weaponized narrative permeated every aspect of the investigation and trial process, creating an environment where the defendants’ guilty verdict was assured before any evidence was even presented. January 6 prosecutions have resulted in a near 100 percent conviction rate; defendants are statistically more likely to end up dead than exonerated of their charges in court.
The January 6 Commission — a body that was made up almost entirely of individuals with clear political agendas — further fueled this one-sided narrative. While the commission did provide a forum for airing partisan grievances in a Hollywood-style produced show trial, it also had the effect of demonizing anyone associated with the Capitol riot, thus creating a prejudicial atmosphere in the courts. The defendants were not just facing charges — they were confronting a verdict that had already been shaped by political bias. The January 6 commission made it extremely difficult for thousands of defendants to receive a fair trial.
Moreover, these trials were held in Washington, D.C., where the sentiment surrounding January 6 was overwhelmingly negative and partisan. The jury pool, which included many government employees, was inevitably influenced by the widespread media portrayal of those involved as radical extremists. The concept of a fair trial was already compromised before the first gavel fell. This prejudicial treatment became even more evident with activist judges, whose lack of impartiality was reflected in disparate sentencing, often exceeding the prosecution's recommendations.
Unconstitutional Charges: Obstruction of an Official Proceeding
The DOJ commonly levied a charge against the January 6 defendants for obstruction of an official proceeding. The Supreme Court ruled in June against the use of the obstruction charge in Fischer v. U.S., addressing the interpretation of a provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
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The law, passed in the aftermath of the Enron scandal, criminalizes the destruction of records relevant to investigations. It also contains a broad "catchall" provision that makes it a crime to "corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede" any official proceeding. Fischer’s lawyers had argued that this provision should be understood in the context of the law’s original intent, which focused primarily on financial crimes and tampering with records, rather than obstructing proceedings by, for example, loitering in a hallway.
The Supreme Court's decision effectively limited the scope of this provision, ruling that it should not be used to charge individuals related to the January 6 events. This ruling is crucial because it exposed the novel and unconstitutional application of the obstruction charge as an overreach of federal authority, subjecting individuals to this willfully distorted interpretation of the law. It serves as another reason why all the January 6 defendants deserve a pardon.
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Blurred Lines Between Violent and Non-Violent Offenders
In May 2023, former President Trump suggested he would differentiate between the defendants based on violent or nonviolent designations in deciding whom to grant pardons. In a CNN town hall, he said:
I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can't say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.
The distinction between violent and non-violent participants in the January 6 Capitol riot is not as clear-cut as prosecutors would like the public to believe. This is especially important when considering the broader context of the day’s events, where the actions of law enforcement and crowd-control tactics played an outsized role in escalating the situation, with no accountability for those actions in the aftermath.
Law enforcement met the large crowd with aggressive measures, including tear gas, rubber bullets, and other crowd-control munitions. This created an emotionally charged and volatile environment.
For example, during his trial, Dominic Pezzola's defense argued that he had not intended to engage in violence or illegal activity at the Capitol. His attorneys contended that Pezzola, after being knocked down by law enforcement during the chaos of the riot, grabbed a police riot shield in an instinctive attempt to protect himself from further harm. This is a key point: Pezzola’s actions were a reaction to the circumstances — not part of a calculated plan for violence.
Pezzola testified that he took the shield:
...out of fear for my own life, because deadly force was being used against us by the police.
He explained that the police’s use of flashbangs, pepper spray, and rubber bullets made him “angry." Pezzola testified that at the time he fell to the ground, he was discussing the policing tactics, telling the jury:
I was trying to explain to cops that it’s not legal to shoot people in the face.
Pezzola testified that someone else took the shield from an officer first and that he grabbed the shield from that person.
The true context of the situation is that many individuals who entered the Capitol on January 6 were not necessarily intent on violence. Instead, they were acting out of anger, confusion, or a desire to make their voices heard. This moment of mass action spiraled out of control in part due to systemic failures by law enforcement to prevent the breach in the first place, and escalations in the wake of the inappropriate use of crowd control munitions.
Testimony Against Each Other
Across-the-board pardons eliminate the need to create arbitrary "naughty" and "nice" lists based on the level of cooperation defendants gave the government in their prosecutions. In many cases, individuals were pressured into cooperating, often at the expense of their own integrity, leading to instances where people turned on each other in exchange for reduced sentences. This practice is not justice — it is a system of punishment through coercion.
In these high-stakes situations, with the looming threat of severe penalties, many defendants were caught in a moral and legal dilemma: cooperate with the government and potentially save themselves, or refuse and face years in prison for actions that were, in many instances, less violent than the prosecution portrayed. This intense pressure created an environment of fear and mistrust, where people felt compelled to testify against one another, sometimes distorting the truth in the process.
The result was a fractured, bitter atmosphere that undermined the idea of fair justice. Cooperation with the government shouldn’t be the deciding factor in determining who deserves clemency or punishment. We cannot base decisions about pardons on interpersonal grievances or the level of government cooperation a person gives, as these factors only further erode the fairness of the legal system.
The Right Course of Action
A blanket pardon for all the January 6 defendants would not only bring relief to those who have already faced unjust legal consequences, but it would also be a necessary step toward repairing a fractured justice system. These individuals were prosecuted in a venue where the political narrative was already decided, in many cases under charges that have since been declared unlawful.
A pardon would not erase the events of January 6, nor would it suggest that what happened that day was acceptable. However, it would send a clear message that justice should be based on fairness, not political bias. It would affirm the principle that individuals should not be punished based on the political winds of the moment or on a system that was designed to make an example of them. All these defendants deserve a chance to move on — all of them should be pardoned.
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