Trump defends pardons for rioters and suggests Proud Boys could have place in politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has defended his decision to pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers during the attack on the Capitol and suggests there could be a place in U.S. politics for the Proud Boys extremist group, quickly evoking some of the controversies of his first term. Trump on Tuesday (Jan. 21, 2025) defended his decision to use his first hours in office to pardon hundreds of people who participated in violence at the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, 2021, including the former leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges but released from prison after Trump signed his order.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on his first full day in office Tuesday (Jan. 21, 2025) defended his decision to grant clemency to people convicted of assaulting police officers during the 2021 attack on the Capitol and suggested there could be a place in American politics for the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, extremist groups whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the U.S.

The president also continued to dismantle the government’s promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI. The White House issued a memo placing on paid leave all federal staff who work on those efforts, with plans to lay them off soon. DEI trainings were also canceled.

Trump’s actions were the latest step in his drive to overhaul Washington and erase the work of President Joe Biden’s administration.

A priority for Trump has been helping supporters who laid siege to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, making their pardons his first official action once he returned to the White House after his inauguration on Monday.

Among the roughly 1,500 people pardoned by Trump were more than 200 who pleaded guilty to assaulting police. At least 140 officers were injured during the riot — many beaten, bloodied and crushed by the crowd — as Trump’s supporters tried to overturn Biden’s election victory.

Before the Capitol attack, the Proud Boys was a group best known for street fights with anti-fascist activists when Trump infamously told the group to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate in 2020 with then-presidential candidate Biden.

The group’s former top leader, Enrique Tarrio, and three of his lieutenants were convicted of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden after the 2020 election. Tarrio was serving a 22-year prison sentence, the longest of any Capitol riot case, before Trump pardoned him on Monday. Some members of the group marched in Washington on Monday as Trump was sworn into another term.

When pressed by a reporter about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and whether there was a place for them in politics, Trump said, “Well, we have to see. They’ve been given a pardon. I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”

Trump spoke to reporters at the White House as he highlighted an investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure and declared, “We’re back.”

“I think we’re going to do things that people will be shocked at,” he said.

When pressed about his decision to free people from prison who were shown on camera viciously attacking Capitol police officers, Trump declared, “I am a friend of police, more than any president who’s ever been in this office.”

The president on Tuesday said he thought the sentences handed down for actions that day were “ridiculous and excessive” and said, “These are people who actually love our country, so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.”

Two major law enforcement groups, The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, issued a joint statement saying they were “deeply discouraged” by the pardons and commutations and believed those convicted should serve their full sentences.

The president was also asked about his personal net worth benefitting from his launch of a new cryptocurrency token the day before he was sworn into office, and whether he would continue to sell products to benefit himself while in office.

“I don’t know much about it other than I launched it,” he said. “I heard it was very successful. I haven’t checked it. Where is it today?”

Trump had opened his first full day back in office by demonstrating one of his favored expressions of power: firing people.

The new president posted on his Truth social media network early Tuesday that he would fire more than 1,000 presidential appointees “who are not aligned with our vision,” including some high-profile names.

Trump fired chef and humanitarian José Andrés from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, retired Gen. Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, former State Department official Brian Hook from the board of the Wilson Center and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council.

“YOU’RE FIRED!” Trump said in his post — his catchphrase from his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”

Andrés and Bottoms disputed Trump’s assertion that they were fired, saying in posts on social media that they had already submitted their resignations.

Biden also removed many Trump appointees in his first days in office, including former press secretary Sean Spicer from the board overseeing the U.S. Naval Academy.

Three major business leaders — SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison — joined Trump on Tuesday afternoon to announce the creation of a new company called Stargate, which would invest up to $500 billion over the next four years in AI infrastructure, according to the White House.

Initial plans for Stargate, which is beginning construction in Texas, date back to Biden’s time in office. Tech news outlet The Information reported on the project in March 2024.

Trump also attended a national prayer service Tuesday morning at Washington National Cathedral, a customary visit for new presidents and one that wrapped up four days of inauguration-related events.

One of the speakers at the interfaith service, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, used her sermon to send a message to Trump, urging compassion for LGBTQ+ people and undocumented migrant workers.

“You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now,” said Budde, who has criticized Trump before.

Asked afterward by a reporter what he thought of the service, Trump said: “Not too exciting was it. I didn’t think it was a good service. They could do much better.”

Later in the day, the president met with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other GOP legislators. It was the first formal sit-down for the GOP leadership teams, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso and the new president, as they chart priorities for using Republican power in Washington.

It was more of a date than a marriage, said one person familiar with the private meeting, and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Trump floated many ideas on the priorities ahead — for tax cuts, disaster aid, regulatory reforms and the upcoming March deadline to fund the government — with no clear preference for their various strategies, only that they get the job done. Policy aides Stephen Miller and James Braid joined the talk.

The GOP leaders were given chocolate chip cookies and commemorative coins.

After the meeting, Senate Republicans raised the threat of recess appointments to install Trump’s Cabinet. Thune pushed for a quick confirmation, but Trump has demanded that Republicans prepare to put the Senate in recess, allowing Trump to appoint his picks to Cabinet posts without Senate confirmation.

Trump mused Tuesday that the Los Angeles wildfires would give Republicans leverage with Democrats over budget negotiations, because Los Angeles is “going to need a lot of money. And generally speaking, I think you’ll find that a lot of Democrats are going to be asking for help.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A prosecutor says Proud Boys leaders charged with plotting to use violence to keep Donald Trump in power saw the far-right extremist group as the former president’s “army.” A jury on Monday (April 24, 2023) began hearing closing arguments for the trial of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants. Prosecutor Conor Mulroe said the Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf.” Tarrio is among the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the deadly Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Defense attorneys have said there is no evidence or a conspiracy or a plan for Proud Boys to attack the Capitol.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ready for “all-out war,” leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Donald Trump as the former president clung to power after the 2020 election, a prosecutor said Monday (April 24, 2023) at the close of a historic trial over the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

Jurors began hearing attorneys’ closing arguments for the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants. They are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021, when the pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol.

Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe told jurors, who heard more than three months of testimony. “These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”

The prosecution’s words underscore how the Justice Department has worked throughout the trial to link the violence on Jan. 6 to the rhetoric and actions of the former president. Prosecutors have repeatedly shown jurors a video clip of Trump telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first presidential debate with Joe Biden.

Defense attorneys have said there is no evidence or a conspiracy or a plan for Proud Boys to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Mulroe said a conspiracy can be an unspoken and implicit “mutual understanding, reached with a wink and a nod.” A “plan,” he added, isn’t the right word for what this case is about.

Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot that erupted at the Capitol. Tarrio wasn’t in Washington, D.C., that day but is accused of orchestrating an attack from afar.

The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist group, the Oath Keepers. But this is the first major trial involving leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, a neofacist group of self-described “Western chauvinists” that remains a force in mainstream Republican circles.

Seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that is rare and can be difficult to prove, carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The Proud Boys also face other serious charges.

Jurors have heard 50 days of testimony by more than three dozen witnesses since the trial started in January. Two of the five defendants testified, but Tarrio wasn’t one of them.

The foundation of the government’s case is a trove of messages that Proud Boys leaders and members privately exchanged in encrypted chats — and publicly posted on social media — before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.

The messages show Proud Boys celebrating when Trump, a Republican, told the group to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden, a Democrat. After the 2020 election, they discussed plans to travel to Washington for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. And they raged online for weeks about baseless claims of a stolen election and what would happen when Biden took office.

“If Biden steals this election, (the Proud Boys) will be political prisoners,” Tarrio posted on Nov. 16, 2020. “We won’t go quietly … I promise.”

Jurors also saw the string of gleeful messages that Proud Boys members posted during the Jan. 6 riot. A group of Proud Boys marched to the Capitol that day. Some entered the building after the mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed police lines.

“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in one message. “We did this.”

Tarrio, a Miami resident, is on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Pezzola was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.

Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Jan. 6 riot on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. Tarrio heeded a judge’s order to leave the nation’s capital after his arrest.

The defense attorneys called several current and former Proud Boys to the stand, trying to portray the group as a drinking club that only engaged in violence for self-defense against antifascist activists.

Rehl, the first defendant to testify, said the group had “no objective” that day. Pezzola testified that he got “caught up in the craziness” and acted alone on Jan. 6 when he used a riot shield stolen from a police officer to smash a Capitol window.

Prosecutors have argued that Tarrio and the others mobilized a loyal group of foot soldiers — or “tools” — to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot. Mulroe said the Proud Boys leaders wanted to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory “by any means necessary, including force.”

“You want to call this a drinking club? You want to call a men’s fraternal organization? Ladies and gentlemen, let’s call this what it is … a violent gang that came together to use force against its enemies” the prosecutor said.

Key witnesses for prosecutors included two former Proud Boys members who pleaded guilty to riot-related charges and are cooperating with the government in the hopes of getting lighter sentences.

The first, Matthew Greene, testified that group members were expecting a “civil war” as they grew increasingly angry about the election results. The second, Jeremy Bertino, testified that he viewed the Proud Boys as leaders of the conservative movement and as “the tip of the spear” after the November 2020 election.

The Proud Boys’ defense mirrored arguments made by lawyers for members of the Oath Keepers, who were separately charged with seditious conspiracy. They, too, said there was no evidence of a plan for group members to attack the Capitol.

Several Oath Keepers — including the antigovernment group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes — also took the witness stand in their trials, with mixed results. Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, prosecutors secured seditious conspiracy convictions against Rhodes and five other members, while three defendants were acquitted of the charge. Those three, however, were convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

MARCH 7, 2023:

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to unleash a trove of Jan. 6 Capitol attack footage to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has launched a wholesale Republican effort to rewrite the history of the deadly siege. Carlson aired the first installment of some 41,000 hours of security footage on his prime-time show and promised more Tuesday (March 7, 2023). The conservative commentator is working to reverse the narrative of the attack that had played out for the world to see into one more favorable to Donald Trump. It comes as Trump is again running for president and executives at the cable news giant have admitted the network spread the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Handed some 41,000 hours of Jan. 6 security footage, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has launched an impassioned new effort to explain away the deadly Capitol siege, linking the Republican Party ever more closely to pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the 2021 riot.

The conservative commentator aired a first installment to millions of viewers on his prime-time show, working to bend perceptions of the grueling siege that played out for the world to see into a narrative favorable to Donald Trump.

He promised more Tuesday night (March 7, 2023).

The undertaking by Fox News comes as Trump is again running for president, and executives at the highest levels of the cable news giant have admitted in unrelated court proceedings that it spread the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election despite dismissing Trump’s assertions privately.

The effort dovetails with the work of Republicans on Capitol Hill, led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who turned over the security footage to Fox. The Republicans are trying to claw back the findings of the House Jan. 6 investigation, which painstakingly documented, with testimony and video evidence, how Trump rallied his supporters to head to the Capitol and “fight like hell” as Congress was certifying his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump on Tuesday contended that Carlson’s presentation was “irrefutable” evidence that rioters have been wrongly accused of crimes and he thanked the host and the speaker for their work. Carlson praised McCarthy as having “rectified” the official record.

Trump called anew for the release from custody of people who have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to charges from the attack.

At the same time, criticism poured in from Democrats over the GOP’s attempt to amplify falsehoods about the attack that was seen around the world as Trump supporters laid siege to the seat of U.S. democracy.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the Democrat who chaired the House Jan. 6 Committee investigating the riot, called McCarthy’s decision to selectively release the security footage “a dereliction of duty.”

“Despite repeated warnings as to the sensitive nature of this footage, the speaker decided it was more important to give in to a Fox host who spews lies and propaganda than to protect the Capitol,” Thompson said in a statement. He called Jan. 6 “one of the darkest days in the history of our democracy.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Monday night Fox News episode from Carlson “one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on television.”

The show’s portrayal was “an insult to every single police officer,” Schumer said. especially the family of Brian Sicknick, who died later after fighting the mob. “Nonviolent? Ask his family.”

In the roughly 30-minute segment, Fox distilled the thousands of hours of footage of the gruesome scenes at the Capitol that day and did show some of the hand-to-hand combat as rioters laid siege to the building, broke windows and kicked down doors to gain entry.

But he also emphasized imagery of the invaders, some in combat gear and wielding flagpoles, merely milling about the gilded halls, taking pictures of the surroundings during pauses in the hours-long attack.

“These were not insurrectionist. They were sightseers,” Carlson said.

The footage he aired focused on one of the highest-profile rioters, Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” garbed in his horned hat and bare chested, as he poked around the building, officers standing by or opening doors. Chansley pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

Carlson denounced the Jan. 6 committee led by Democrats in the past Congress, and called out Trump’s chief Republican critics Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as liars on the panel.

He said most of rioters were “not destroying the Capitol, they obviously revere the Capitol.”

Carlson is reviving the falsehoods launched by Trump and his allies, including Republicans in Congress, that the attackers were peaceful protesters and acted like tourists, despite the well-documented carnage of the day and the deaths of five people in the riot and its aftermath. It’s part of an effort to reverse criminal charges for those being prosecuted in the attack, many of whom have pleaded guilty and said they regretted their actions on Jan. 6.

Capitol Police officers who were defending against the mob have testified to their harrowing experiences — one said she was slipping in other people’s blood, while another told of being crushed in the mob — as they worked and ultimately failed to block the rioters from storming the Capitol.

Among those who died in the riot and its aftermath were Trump supporter Ashli Babbit who was shot by police and Capitol Police officer Sicknick who died after fighting the mob.

Carlson aired footage of Sicknick inside the Capitol picking up posters and politely ushering protesters out the door, portraying that as evidence the officer was not killed in the crush.

That last was denounced by Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger as “the most disturbing accusation from last night.”

“The Department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” Chief Manger said in a memo to his police force.

He said the program “cherry-picked” from calmer moments of the day, ignoring “the chaos and violence that happened before or during.”

The Sicknick family said in a statement that the footage simply showed that Brian Sicknick bravely resumed his duties for a time after he had been attacked by a chemical agent.

Ken Sicknick, Brian Sicknick’s brother, said in an interview that the family is “at a loss” about how to fight back against a network with millions of viewers and the speaker of the House who gave access to the footage.

Law enforcement failures on Jan. 6 have been investigated in Congress and acknowledged: Police failed to heed signs of a looming attack and were slow to provide an adequate response, including reinforcement from the National Guard stationed nearby.

Nearly 1,000 people have been charged by the Justice Department in the siege, with members of the extremist Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups facing rare charges of sedition for their roles at the front of the assault. Several members of the Oath Keepers have been found guilty of sedition

Most of the defendants face lesser misdemeanor charges for having been on hand during the siege.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are mounting an effort to retell the history of Jan. 6 through the House Administration Committee, which has opened an online portal for submissions from the public.

Some Republicans though appeared uncomfortable with McCarthy’s move and the way the footage was being used.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called Carlson’s depiction of Jan. 6 “b———-.”

Pressed about Jan. 6, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2. Republican, said, “It was an attack on the Capitol.”