Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, who were sentenced to the longest sentences for the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, have been released.
Just hours after President Donald Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 people charged with involvement in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, two leading figures of the U.S. far right are in prison. was released from.
A lawyer for Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right group Proud Boys, announced that he was released on Tuesday. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Stewart Rhodes, a former leader of the Oath Keepers militia, was also released shortly after midnight Tuesday in Cumberland, Maryland. Trump commuted his 18-year prison sentence.
Mr. Rose and Mr. Tarrio were two of the highest-profile defendants of January 6, receiving some of the harshest sentences in the Justice Department’s longstanding effort to investigate the Capitol riot. .
President Trump had promised to pardon those charged in connection with the day’s events, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying his defeat in the 2020 election.
In the weeks leading up to the riot, Trump had repeatedly falsely claimed the election was stolen from him. He also called on his supporters to “fight like hell” and “stop the steal” at a rally just before the attack began.
Mr. Rose was convicted and sentenced in 2023 of an unusual seditious conspiracy in which the defendants allegedly plotted to undermine the authority of or attack the U.S. government.
Prosecutors had accused Rose of directing members of the Oath Keepers to attack the Capitol. Mr. Rose has denied any wrongdoing and said he is the victim of politically motivated persecution.
“Mr. Rose, it is clear that for decades you have wanted this country’s democracy to descend into violence,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said in handing down the sentence.
“The moment you are released, no matter when it is, you will be ready to take up arms against the government.”
Tarrio, for his part, was convicted of several crimes, including seditious conspiracy. Tarrio was not in Washington, D.C., at the time of the Capitol attack, but prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack on Proud Boys who were there that day.
In a statement confirming Tarrio’s release, his family said he was expected to arrive in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday afternoon.
“Thank you for being with us, the Golden Age is here!” the statement read, echoing Trump’s call for a “Golden Age” under his presidency.
Within hours of taking office on Monday, President Trump granted pardons to everyone charged in connection with the riot. He pardoned more than 1,500 people and commuted the sentences of 14 others.
In a statement posted on the White House website, President Trump said the measure would “end the gross national injustices inflicted on the American people over the past four years and begin a process of national reconciliation.” “I will.”
Craig Sicknick, whose brother, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, was assaulted during the riot and died the next day from multiple strokes, called President Trump “pure evil” on Tuesday.
“The man who killed my brother is now president,” he told Reuters.
“My brother died in vain. Everything he did was to protect the country, to protect the Capitol — why would he even bother to do that?” Sicknick said. “What Mr. Trump did was despicable and proves that America no longer has anything resembling a judicial system.”
Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police officer who was seriously injured in the riot, also expressed outrage that the six people he assaulted that day would be released.
“I was betrayed by my country,” he told CNN on Monday.