With Trump's return, are Jan 6 Capitol rioters off the hook?
Few people may be more relieved about President-elect Donald Trump's pending return to the White House than the more than 1,500 Americans charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
On the campaign trail, Trump often referred to those convicted and awaiting trial on Jan. 6 charges as "political prisoners" and "hostages" and said he'd pardon them if he won the 2024 election.
Those convicted of serious felonies include leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys militias who are serving sentences for crimes including seditious conspiracy.
Trump himself was charged in a federal indictment over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, but Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is winding down that and a separate case following Trump's victory last week.
More: Trump pardons for Jan. 6 rioters could reinvigorate America's far-right extremism
A similar endgame may await the cases against Jan. 6 defendants facing a range of misdemeanor and felony charges.
Now that Trump has won, what will happen to those cases? Here are three things to know.
How many cases are there?
There are several archives and databases keeping track of the Jan. 6 prosecutions. One, by National Public Radio, lists the total number of people charged with federal offenses at 1,542, as of Nov. 8, 2024.
Of those, the database reports, 999 pleaded guilty and another 174 were convicted on all charges while 73 were found guilty on some of the charges. Only three people, according to NPR's count, were acquitted.
In all, 1,030 of these defendants have been sentenced.
Who are some of the more high-profile cases?
One of the most notorious cases is the one against Henry "Enrique" Tarrio. The former head of the Proud Boys militant group was convicted in May 2023 of felonies including seditious conspiracy. In September 2023, Tarrio, of Miami, was sentenced to 22 years in prison and three years of supervised release.
Another former Proud Boys member, Joseph Biggs of Ormond Beach, Florida, was sentenced to 17 years in August 2023.
Those sentences followed convictions of leaders of another extremist group, the Oath Keepers. In May 2023, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III of Texas, the group's founder, and Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Oath Keepers' Florida chapter, were also sentenced on seditious conspiracy and other Jan. 6 charges.
Another high-profile case involves brother and sister Jonathan Pollock and Olivia Pollock of Lakeland, Florida. The siblings traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 2021 for then-President Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally, federal prosecutors said. Following the attack, a grand jury indicted the two on charges that included assaulting police officers, violent entry, presence in a restricted area and disorderly conduct.
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Jonathan Pollock managed to avoid arrest and became a fugitive, according to media reports, while Olivia Pollock was arrested but was released on bond and under a monitoring program. But she disabled her GPS monitor and went into hiding just before a court appearance in March 2023, the Department of Justice stated.
The Pollocks were apprehended and await disposition of their case.
Why does this matter?
The attack on the U.S. Capitol almost four years ago shocked the world. A congressional committee issued a 1,000-page report in December 2022 detailing what it called a coup attempt led by Trump and his allies.
Since then, however, views about the day's violence have splintered along partisan lines.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll taken early this year found 55% of voters said they believed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was an attack on American democracy and 43% said there has been too much focus and attention on the day's events.
Some 86% of Democrats said the attack should not be forgotten and 72% of Republicans said it was time to move on.
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In the 2024 election, Jan. 6 was a key reason voters worried about the fate of U.S. democracy. An exit poll by NBC News said 34% of voters said the state of democratic governance was their most pressing issue, followed by the economy at 31%.
Jacob Ware, co-author of the book "God, Guns and Sedition," notes that organizations like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were effectively "broken up" by the Jan. 6 backlash and the prosecutions. But the larger message, the broader hope that Jan. 6 might serve as an enduring deterrence against political violence and insurrection, has much less stamina.
"The Jan. 6 deterrence factor that you think would be in place based on the charges involved has already been eroded," Ware said. "People were punished for the crimes they committed, and that's important from a criminal justice standpoint.
"But the deterrence that you would think from this case, the largest investigation in American history, would implement has been eroded from four years of rhetoric calling them warriors, heroes, patriots, political prisoners, martyrs. And so a pardon would almost be a more of a confirmation of that as opposed to something drastic or different."
Trump has named figures to his Cabinet, including Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, who have decried the Jan. 6 prosecutions, including the case against Trump.
Contributing: Gary White, Lakeland Ledger
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump said they are 'hostages.' So, what happens to Jan. 6 cases now?