No one knows more about the hundreds of criminal cases brought against the rioters who participated in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, than the federal judges in Washington who oversaw their trials and guilty pleas, watched thousands of hours of surveillance video, and listened to hundreds of witnesses give their accounts. directly from the attack.
On Wednesday, two days after President Trump granted sweeping reprieves to all 1,600 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack, some judges began to oppose his moves, declaring that nothing — not even a presidential decree — could change the truth of what happened that day. .
As part of his pardon order, Trump directed officials at the Justice Department to begin dismissing any related cases still active in the federal district court in Washington, where all of the Capitol riot proceedings were heard. While judges there granted dozens of such requests, some did so in orders that reminded the world of the chaos and violence that occurred on January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters disrupted the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 election victory.
“Dismissing this case cannot undo the rampage that left several people dead, more than 140 people injured, and millions of dollars in damage,” Judge Tanya S. Chutkan wrote in a decision that formally ended the case. The case against John BanolosWho was accused of firing a gun into the air inside the Capitol building.
“It cannot diminish the heroism of law enforcement officers who ‘struggled, facing serious injury and even death, to control the mob that overpowered them,’” Judge Chutkan continued, citing court documents in another case dated January 6. The blood, the feces, and the horror the mob left in its wake. It cannot repair the gaping hole in the sacred American tradition of peaceful transfer of power.
Hours earlier, another judge on the same court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, wrote something similar while dismissing the case against Dominic Box, who was convicted of six counts connected to the Capitol attack.
“Dismissal of charges, post-conviction pardon, and commutation of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021,” Judge Kollar Koteli wrote. “What happened that day is preserved for the future through thousands of contemporary videos, trial transcripts, jury verdicts, and judicial opinions that analyze the evidence and tell it through an impartial lens.”
Even before Trump issued his clemency declaration — which included pardons, commutations and a directive to dismiss pending charges — a Trump-appointed judge in Washington said any expanded form of mercy for the Capitol rioters would be a mistake.
“A blanket pardon for all the defendants in the January 6 case or anything close to that would be more than just frustrating and disappointing, but that is not my goal,” Judge Carl J. Nichols said in court in November. “The possibility of some pardons, at least, is very real.”
Another judge in Washington, Royce C. Lamberth, a former prosecutor appointed by President Ronald Reagan, did his best in issuing the court order filed before Inauguration Day to “clear the air” and “remind ourselves of what really happened” on January 6.
Judge Lamberth described in harrowing detail how an angry mob of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol with the intent to “frustrate the peaceful transfer of power that is the centerpiece of our Constitution and the cornerstone of our republican heritage”; How they ignored the directions to return; How some rioters engaged in a “fierce battle” with the police, “running over and over officers.”
