After winning the presidential election, Donald Trump told Time magazine that he was still considering pardoning his supporters who were involved in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, but that he was particularly looking at those who were charged. of “non-violent” crimes.
“I’m going to do it case by case, and if they were not violent, I think they have been heavily punished,” he said.
Instead, on his first day in office, Trump went much broader, granting pardons to most of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6 attack. Their actions have paved the way for the release of numerous people convicted of violent attacks.
Here are some of them:
Tyler Bradley Dykes
Dykes, of Bluffton, South Carolina, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for stealing a police riot shield and using it twice against officers. He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.
Prosecutors accused Dykes of giving a “Sieg Heil!” (Long live victory!) greeting during the attack, which he denied. Prosecutors also said Dykes quoted Adolf Hitler before the attack and had participated in training for a neo-Nazi accelerationist group, The Base.
When Dykes, who was discharged from the Marine Corps for “engaging in extremist behavior,” was taken into federal custody, he was serving a five-year sentence for his actions at the racist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. , in 2017. .
andres taake
Taake, of Houston, was sentenced to just over six years for assaulting law enforcement officers with bear spray and a metal whip. On December 20, 2023, he pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting, resisting or preventing officers from using a dangerous weapon. A sting operation launched by a woman on the dating app Bumble after the Jan. 6 attack led to her arrest. Taake and other participants on Jan. 6 gave her information about their activities during the attack, which she provided to investigators.
Taake was on pretrial release accused of soliciting services from a minor at the time of the attack. He was one of the first to breach the restricted perimeter of the Capitol grounds and invade West Plaza, prosecutors said.
Christopher Quaglin
Quaglin, who federal prosecutors said “brutally assaulted numerous officers” and was one of the most violent rioters, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.
On July 10, 2023, he was found guilty of 14 charges: 12 felonies and two misdemeanors.
“On at least a dozen occasions, Quaglin stood face to face with officers while yelling at them, pushing with his arms outstretched, punching, punching and slapping officers; pushed bike racks at officers; and even strangled an officer to the ground,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
According to prosecutors, Quaglin said on social media that he traveled to Washington to fight in what he believed would be a “CIVIL WAR!” against a tyrannical government and intended to show members of Congress who their bosses were.
Quaglin, of North Brunswick, New Jersey, lashed out at the U.S. District Judge who convicted him, Trevor McFadden, whom Trump appointed in 2017.
“You are Trump’s worst mistake of 2016,” Quaglin told McFadden in a lengthy statement at his sentencing.
McFadden told Quaglin that he had falsely claimed that the attack was largely peaceful.
“You were anything but peaceful that day,” he said. “You are a threat to our society.”
Taylor James Johnatakis
Johnatakis, of Kingston, Washington, was convicted of three felonies in November 2023: obstruction of an official proceeding, assault on officers and civil disorder. Johnatakis represented himself at trial and indicated that he did not believe he was subject to the laws governing the United States.
He was also found guilty of four misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, and engaging in an act of physical violence in the land. from any of the Capitol buildings. He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison.
Prosecutors said he “coordinated a violent assault on a line of police officers defending” the Capitol and that video shows he “used a metal barricade to attack officers head-on and grabbed an officer to prevent him from defending himself.” other attacking rioters, which contributed to the physical injury of that officer.”
Before the attack, Johnatakis said on social media that he was going to Washington, DC, “to CHANGE the course of HISTORY #stopthesteal” and “What the British did to DC will be nothing…”
David Dempsey
Dempsey, who prosecutors said “was one of the most violent rioters,” received one of the longest sentences: 20 years in prison. The FBI arrested him in August 2021. He traveled from his home in Santa Ana, California, to Washington with others and attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse on the morning of January 6.
Later that day, Dempsey said several Democratic politicians, including “Clinton,” “Obama,” Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi, should be hanged and called them “pieces of trash” and other insults, prosecutors said.
Dempsey walked with others toward the Capitol and headed to the Lower West Terrace tunnel, where some of the most violent attacks on law enforcement occurred, prosecutors said. He joined the crowd and pushed toward a line of police defending the tunnel, prosecutors also said.
Dempsey climbed his fellow rioters “as if they were human scaffolding” and used “his hands, feet, flagpoles, crutches, pepper spray, broken furniture and anything else he could get his hands on” as weapons against the officers, according to prosecutors.
Nearly three years later, on January 4, 2024, Dempsey pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors said Dempsey had a “very significant record of arrests and convictions.” He assaulted anti-Trump protesters with bear spray in 2019, resulting in a two-year suspended sentence. He also attacked a counterprotester with a skateboard in 2019, used the same skateboard to attack another person at a political protest the following year, and hit a person with a metal bat during another 2020 protest.
Daniel Rodriguez
Rodriguez, of Fontana, California, used a stun gun and stuck it in the neck of Washington police officer Michael Fanone several times. Fanone has been one of the rioters’ staunchest critics.
Rodriguez traveled to Washington with fellow Trump supporters who belonged to a Telegram group called “PATRIOTS 45 MAGA Gang.” Prosecutors said he was the group’s administrator.
“There will be blood,” Rodríguez wrote in a “MAGA Gang” Telegram chat the night before the January 6 attack. “Welcome to the revolution.”
He would continue to attend Trump’s rally at the Ellipse. On January 6, after having joined the fight in the Capitol’s Lower West Tunnel, Rodriguez attacked Fanone. He later bragged about his actions in the Telegram chat, writing: “OMG I did so much s**t. [right now] and he ran away” and “Tazzed the f— out of nowhere.”
He pleaded guilty in February 2023 to felony conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, tampering with documents or procedures, and inflicting bodily injury on officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Before his sentencing, Rodriguez said in a rambling 20-minute speech that he “really” thought a civil war was going to start and that he believed the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers formed because police were retreating across the country. He acknowledged his actions against Fanone but did not apologize.
Before being sentenced, Fanone said, in part: “Any compassion or empathy I felt toward those who laid siege to our Capitol, whose actions I felt were influenced at least in part by their leader, Donald Trump, and his lies, have been eroded, eroded for the attacks directed at me and my family by Donald Trump supporters and right-wing media.”
Ryan Nichols
Nichols, of Longview, Texas, attacked officers with pepper spray and later, on Jan. 6, in his hotel room, called for more violence.
Nichols confessed on video in the third person. He was arrested in Texas on January 18, 2021.
He pleaded guilty in November 2023 to one felony count each of obstruction of an official proceeding and assault of officers in the performance of their duties.
He was sentenced to more than five years in prison. in a video Recorded before participating in the attack, Nichols said the mob would lynch the elected officials who voted to certify Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
“Ryan Nichols said it, if you voted for fucking treason, we will drag you through the streets,” he said in the video as he marched toward the Capitol.
After he was seen on video spraying a giant canister of a chemical weapon at officers inside the Lower West Terrace tunnel, Nichols bragged about his conduct on Facebook and called for more violence.
“So if you want to know where Ryan Nichols stands, Ryan Nichols represents violence.” he said in a video cited by prosecutors.
Prosecutors sought an 83-month sentence, noting that Nichols repeatedly said he was willing to die for her cause.
“I will die for this,” Nichols said in a video after the attack. “But before I do that, I plan to make other people die first, for their country, if necessary.”
At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said that while Nichols’ apology at his sentencing hearing appeared sincere, he made “very harsh comments” on tape about his desire for future violence.
