Image: Screenshot of report.

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 rioters and insurrectionists for crimes connected to the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Hundreds of the convicted offenders had violently assaulted police officers with baseball bats, steel pipes, flagpoles, broken furniture, bear spray, unknown chemicals, and other weapons of convenience; others had smashed windows and destroyed federal property; and still others had conspired to block the peaceful transfer of power by attacking Vice President Mike Pence or destroying Electoral College ballots in order to nullify Joe Biden’s election and make Donald Trump president again.

At least 33 pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have now been convicted of, charged with, or arrested for additional crimes since the violent attack on the Capitol. The crimes committed by rioters before and after the insurrection include: child sexual assault, production of child pornography, possession of child pornography, rape, conspiracy to commit murder of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated robbery, reckless homicide, driving under the influence causing death, illegal possession of firearms, domestic violence by strangulation, burglary, vandalism, grand theft, stalking, violation of protective orders, threatening public officials, and drug trafficking.

After the mass pardon of the mob he set in motion, President Trump proceeded to systematically punish thousands of federal law enforcement officers, both FBI agents and Assistant United States Attorneys, who investigated and prosecuted the January 6th offenders he just pardoned. These experienced agents and career government prosecutors, decorated and promoted in countless ways over the course of their careers, were sacked or demoted for no reason other than the fact that they conducted the investigations and prosecutions they were assigned, holding to account offenders involved in the largest criminal case in American history.

The violence of January 6, 2021, would never have happened without then-President Trump’s instigation and involvement. And President Trump’s shocking pardon-the-perpetrators and-purge-the-prosecutors offensive has made clear that the Executive Branch, reorganized as a “unitary” mechanism under President Trump’s direct and personal control, now stands firmly on the side of autocratic political violence. This authoritarian movement has undermined the public safety of the American people, capsized the traditional independence of the Department of Justice (DOJ), deprived federal law enforcement of thousands of years of collective investigative and prosecutorial experience, and moved our government into the moral and operational realm of the world’s gangster states.

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