On March 11, former president and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged to release everyone incarcerated for their roles in the 2021 Capitol riots as one of his first actions if elected president. The Republican leader said they were unfairly imprisoned despite the fact that the police had found them guilty of offenses related to these actions.
The previous commander in chief posted on his Truth Social account that he would “drill, baby, drill” and close the US border in the first few days of his new presidency, in addition to freeing the “January 6 Hostages.” His post was made only hours after a report by the Congress Administration Subcommittee on Oversight revealed many discrepancies and a dearth of evidence to support the testimony of former White House assistant Cassidy Hutchinson.
The head of the Republican Party has been pressuring US President Joe Biden and his team to free the defendants involved in the Capitol disturbances for the past few months. Nonetheless, Trump’s statement on Truth Social that releasing them within his first days in office is a priority is the first time he has done so since losing the 2020 presidential contest.
Trump and a few other Republican leaders have called the people who are in custody for their involvement in the Capitol rioting “hostages,” but the White House has called these claims absurd. Asserting that the January 6 protests constituted the greatest danger to US democracy in history, President Biden and other administration officials said that those incarcerated for these crimes intended to carry out a coup.
Almost 500 persons have received jail or prison sentences to date after being found guilty by the authorities of their involvement in the Capitol riots. Almost 1,000 persons have been found guilty after 1,350 charges were brought by prosecutors.
