Rhodes, a former US Army paratrooper and Yale-educated lawyer, was accused of leading a contingent of his Oath members to Washington.
Although Rhodes was not inside the Capitol, he controlled his members from the outside and was sentenced in 2023 to 18 years in federal prison.
Tario was found guilty of seditious conspiracy – a rarely used charge of plotting to overthrow the government – in connection with the riots. He was not in Washington at the time of the riots, but directed other participants.
He received 22 years in prison, one of the longest.
Amid the pardons and commutations, Trump also signed an executive order ordering the Justice Department to drop all pending cases against suspects accused of rioting.
Many of those people have been jailed in Washington for more than a year, and Trump often referred to them as “hostages” during his campaign as they awaited trial.
The lead defense attorney for these defendants is Edward R. Martin – has also been named acting US attorney in Washington, D.C., showing the depth of Trump’s desire to quickly end the prosecution. The Washington office was responsible for handling cases related to January 6, 2021.
But for some of the families of those inmates, Tuesday’s release process proved disappointing.
Standing outside the D.C. Central Jail, Ben Pollack, whose children Jonathan and Olivia were locked up inside, said he spoke with his son and learned they could be transferred to another facility.
“We have no idea what’s going on,” he said. “Why weren’t they released?”
Democrats denounced the release of more than 1,000 people as an attempt to rewrite history and sanitize the violence of the riots, which led to many deaths.
Trump called the day “peaceful.”
