Judges Begin Freeing Jan. 6 Defendants After Trump’s Clemency Order

Jan. 6 Pardons 

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Judges Begin Freeing Jan. 6 Defendants and Dismissing Their Cases

Two prominent far-right extremists with central roles in the Capitol attack, Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia, have been set free.

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By Alan Feuer and Aishvarya Kavi

Reporting from Washington

One day after President Trump issued a sweeping legal reprieve to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, some of the defendants started having their cases dismissed or even began to be released from custody.

By Tuesday afternoon, two of the country’s most prominent far-right extremists, Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia, who played central roles in the Capitol attack, had been set free.

Mr. Tarrio, who was serving a 22-year term for a conviction on charges of seditious conspiracy, received a pardon from Mr. Trump and walked out of a prison in Pollock, La. Mr. Rhodes, who was serving an 18-year term on similar charges, had his sentence commuted to time served and was freed from a prison in Cumberland, Md.

Defense lawyers said that another member of the Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, who was one of Mr. Tarrio’s co-defendants, was also released after Mr. Trump commuted his sentence. Mr. Biggs had been serving 17 years in prison after his own conviction on seditious conspiracy charges.

Additional members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were expected to be freed in the coming days.

Defendants have also started to be released from the local jail in Washington, where several rioters have been held in recent years in a special area nicknamed the “patriot wing.” On Monday night, two brothers from Pennsylvania, Matthew and Andrew Valentin, were set free, only days after being sentenced to two and a half years each on charges of assaulting the police.

“They helped break the police line by shoving a metal barricade into officers, and Matthew Valentin violently grabbed an officer’s neck,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo for the men. “They followed that assault by stealing police batons and berating officers.”

On Tuesday, dozens of supporters gathered outside the Washington jail, blaring conservative songs over loudspeakers. “Trump won and you know it. Fox News won’t even show it,” went one medley.

Three Republican members of Congress stopped by — Representatives Eli Crane of Arizona, Chip Roy of Texas and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Ms. Boebert said she wanted to be the first member of Congress to offer any released detainees “a guided tour of the Capitol.”

Mr. Rhodes also showed up at the jail, fresh from his release from prison, echoing many of Mr. Trump’s own complaints about federal investigators.

He said he hoped that Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the F.B.I., “cleans house” at the bureau, and asserted that the prosecutors who tried his sedition case should themselves be prosecuted.

Mr. Rhodes acknowledged that he was not sure about the future of the Oath Keepers, which was all but destroyed as an organization by the Jan. 6 prosecutions. But he insisted that he was pleased with the way that Mr. Trump had commuted his sentence — though he admitted he was angling for a full pardon.

“I feel vindicated and validated,” he said.

At a White House news conference as defendants were being released, Mr. Trump was asked about the pardons and whether the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers would now have a place in the political conversation.

“Well, we have to see,” Mr. Trump said. “They’ve been given a pardon. I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”

Rachel Powell, 44, who smashed windows at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was convicted on nine felony and misdemeanor charges, was released from the jail on Tuesday afternoon and joined the crowd outside the jail as well.

Her hair tucked under a bright pink Trump baseball cap, she showed off a gothic-style stick-and-poke tattoo of “J6” on her arm that she said she got while in detention. Ms. Powell described her anxious anticipation in awaiting a pardon.

“It’s like when you’re 6 years old and you know that Santa’s coming in the morning,” she said.

Cynthia Hughes, the founder of the Patriot Freedom Project, one of the biggest fund-raising groups for Jan. 6 defendants, held tightly to Ms. Powell’s arm, repeating a phrase popular among the crowd when they speak of the president: “Promises made, promises kept.”

Others were released Monday night and Tuesday from detention facilities around the country.

William Sarsfield, who was convicted of disrupting the certification of Joseph R. Biden’s electoral victory, had been freed in Pennsylvania hours earlier and drove to Washington to be outside the jail to greet others being released. He wore a prison-issued sweatsuit and showed off the orange canvas sneakers that he received when he was held at the D.C. jail.

Asked whether he believed that Mr. Trump made the right choice in issuing pardons, he appeared to suggest it was a tough call, but ultimately at the president’s discretion. “There’s no right way to do unprecedented things,” he said.

Robert Morss, 31, a veteran Army Ranger charged with assaulting officers on Jan. 6, was released from a halfway house in Pennsylvania on Monday night and also drove to be at the jail where he had once been detained.

The pardons, he said, were pivotal to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

“Donald Trump isn’t just doing his boys a favor,” Mr. Morss said. “The situation is much bigger than that. America is supposed to be better than and bigger than political prisoners and political warfare.”

U.S. Marshals were seen entering the building on Tuesday afternoon and by evening at least one detainee, Tom Vournas, a member of the Proud Boys, was spotted exiting the complex while guarded by a man in a yellow mask featuring the insignia for the far-right group. Mr. Vournas pleaded guilty in September to felony charges.

Aside from pardons and sentence commutations, Mr. Trump also ordered officials in his Justice Department to dismiss any cases against Jan. 6 defendants that were still moving through Federal District Court in Washington, where all of the proceedings have unfolded.

On Tuesday morning, several judges there granted motions filed by federal prosecutors to drop Jan. 6-related cases, more or less without a fight.

One of the cases that Mr. Trump’s new interim U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, who sits on the board of Ms. Hughes’ fund-raising group, asked to dismiss in light of the president’s sweeping pardons was that of Ryan Samsel.

Mr. Samsel was a Pennsylvania barber who engaged in the very first confrontation with officers at the Capitol, serving as the tipping point of the riot. Prosecutors, citing Mr. Samsel’s long criminal history — including extensive violence against women — had sought a 20-year prison term for him. Now, after the change of administrations, they are seeking to drop the charges altogether.

Another case, for three members of the same family, was in the middle of a jury trial when prosecutors asked the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, to dismiss it. The defendants — Kenneth, Caleb and Nicholas Fuller — had been charged with multiple counts, including felony civil disorder for taking part in a shoving match against police officers, prosecutors said.

In court on Tuesday, Judge Kollar-Kotelly simply asked the three men whether they agreed with the government’s decision to drop the case. When each one, not surprisingly, said he did, the judge declared the trial over and the men went free.

Caleb Fuller has denied that he saw or engaged in any violence and said the dismissal by the judge was a just conclusion to the case.

“We didn’t go there that day with the intention to hurt anyone — and we didn’t hurt anyone,” he said. “So being dismissed, I think it’s valid.”