As one of his first official acts following his inauguration on January 20, US President Donald Trump issued pardons to almost all the 1,600 criminal defendants charged over their involvement in the storming of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

Trump had previously taken to calling them the "J6 hostages."

Among the individuals pardoned are hundreds who admitted to crimes they committed on January 6. Many others have been convicted because they acted violently toward police and other security personnel.

The sweeping pardons at the very start of Trump's second term in office were an extraordinary move on his part, according to legal experts.

"Pardons are typically thought of as something that happens towards the end of an administration," said Aimee Ghosh, partner at the public policy practice of international law firm Pillsbury and a government law expert. 

"Historically, you don't see pardons being a huge focus of day one actions, although sometimes presidents sign pardons throughout their term, especially in connection with legislation that decriminalizes a certain action," she told DW.

This was not the case with those convicted in connection with the January 6 riot. Attacking police officers remains a grave offense under US law.

So why did Trump sign a "full, complete and unconditional pardon," as it is worded in his decree, for almost all participants in the attack on the Capitol?

Typical Trump style

Trump has always maintained that the criminal defendants were simply victims of a campaign by his opponents.

In the first TV interview in his second term — with the Trump-friendly broadcaster Fox News — the president spoke of unnecessarily harsh prison conditions suffered by those convicted. He also asserted that they had just been "protesting the vote, and you should be allowed to protest the vote." 

When the host suggested that demonstrators should not be allowed to enter the Capitol, Trump said most of the people "were absolutely innocent." 

Joseph Margulies, a politics professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said it's impossible to work out whether Trump really believes that, whether the pardons are an act of political calculation or whether they are a mixture of both.

But, Margulies said, the pardons fit in well with Trump's overall style. "Trump's particular brand of muscular populism and in-your-face nationalism thrives on taking positions that thumb their nose at certain conventions," he said.

"That narrative of not just ignoring conventions but smashing them is his brand. And doing it in a way that attempts to rewrite history in a manner that's congenial to his base. And this [the pardons] is of a piece with that," he added.

Partisan amnesty?

Bernadette Meyler, law professor at Stanford University and a scholar of British and American constitutional law, argues the pardons granted by Trump to the convicts "was more like an amnesty than an individual pardon."

"This is because it was collective in nature and did not specify particular crimes for which the individuals were pardoned," she wrote in an email to DW.

"The exceptional nature of this amnesty consists in how it furnished support for those on Trump's own side politically," Meyler wrote.

Who was pardoned?

The convicts were mostly Trump supporters who believed his lie — which has been confirmed as such by several courts — that the Democrats had "stolen" the 2020 election and that he, Trump, had been the true winner.

On January 6, 2021, Congress lawmakers were involved in certifying the election victory of Joe Biden when a furious mob fought its way into the Capitol building. Shortly before, Trump had given a speech nearby in which he reiterated that he was the winner and called on his supporters to march on the Capitol.

Four Trump supporters died during or ahead of the attack. One police officer suffered two strokes in the wake of the events and died a short time afterward. Four other police officers who had been on the scene committed suicide in the weeks and months following the Capital riot.

Trump was officially accused by the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, of inciting the insurrection, but the Republican-majority Senate ended up acquitting him.

'Pardons have substantially undermined the rule of law'

A US president's right to issue pardons is based on the realization that "the law can be cruel," said Margulies. The president has the power to show mercy.

But what message does it send when the president shows this mercy to supporters who violently forced their way into the US Capitol?

"The recent pardons have substantially undermined the rule of law in the US," wrote Meyler. 

"I think we can expect that governmental officials as well as regular people will feel authorized to act illegally in service of Trump's policy goals (including his immigration policy) and expect to be pardoned."

Dangerous precedent

Margulies said the pardons are not a commentary on the rule of law in the US, which is, however, not as neutral as many believe.

"If you take a more critical approach to the rule of law [...], you recognize that the rule of law is always political. Of course, the rule of law is manipulated for political gain in this case," he said.

"This particular use of the pardon power is extraordinary. But that's not a commentary on the rule of law, it's a commentary on Donald Trump," he added. But Trump's recent pardons will have far-reaching consequences, according to Margulies, as they will change what people expect as "reasonable or normal."

"Whenever you degrade norms, it becomes easier to repeat that degradation," he said. "The degradation of norms is not cost-free." 

This article was originally written in German.