President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon most of the Jan. 6 defendants on his first day in office brought excitement and hope to them and their loved ones.
His pardon affected about 1,500 people, and he commuted the sentences of others. The White House announced the pardons shortly after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, more than four years after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach and after the pardoned individuals spent years dealing with the legal system.
Robert Morss, who was found guilty in 2022 on multiple counts, including assault, told The Epoch Times that the pardons felt “bittersweet.” Morss, who pleaded not guilty, said: “We never should have had to endure this as a country, but because we did, our country is stronger for it.”
Micki Witthoeff, whose daughter Ashli Babbitt was shot by police, told The Epoch Times that the last four years have been “life-changing” and that she saw Trump’s pardons as “victory for Ashli.”
Many have criticized how the government responded to Jan. 6. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland, meanwhile, said on Jan. 6, 2025, that his prosecutors “conducted themselves in a manner that adheres to the rule of law and honors our obligation to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of everyone in this country.”
Demonstrators could be seen on Jan. 20 outside of the D.C. Central Detention Facility, where multiple defendants have been detained. Music played as supporters stood in below-freezing temperatures, while police formed a barrier on D Street Southeast.
Among them were Witthoeff and Ben Pollock, who said his daughter and son were imprisoned in the facility. “I’m ecstatic for just them getting to start a new life,” he told The Epoch Times.
Susan Sills, whose son Geoffrey was prosecuted in relation to Jan. 6, spoke to The Epoch Times while on her way to pick her son up from a Pennsylvania prison. “I’m excited, he’s excited,” she said.
When asked whether she was surprised by the pardons, she said, “Not really.” She indicated there was some room for concern since her son was charged with assault.
Luke Coffee, another defendant charged with assault, has maintained the guilty verdict he faced was wrong. After his pardon, Coffee told The Epoch Times that he was “overwhelmed with gratitude” and that the “road ahead is one of rebuilding, reconciliation, and being a voice for the voiceless.”
Desiree Rowland, whose fiancé Barry Ramey was prosecuted, said: “Most people realize our entire life has been turned upside down” and that she took for granted simple things such as being able to talk on the phone or hold hands with Ramey.
—Sam Dorman
BIDEN EXECUTIVE ORDERS RESCINDED
Mere hours after his inauguration ceremony at the nation’s capital on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump rescinded more than 70 executive actions of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Trump had said that among his first actions as the 47th president would be undoing much of the previous administration’s work, targeting Biden’s executive orders (EOs) on policies including immigration, the environment, artificial intelligence (AI), COVID-19, and gender.
Trump clawed back multiple executive orders Biden signed regarding the government’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, including one that created a government-wide response for the expansion of testing and vaccine distribution, and another that developed a plan to conduct studies, large-scale trials, and novel therapies to combat coronavirus.
Trump was also quick to revoke many of Biden’s executive orders on immigration and border security after the latter did the same after taking office in early 2021.
One of Biden’s orders established a federal coordinated effort to address the “Root Causes of Migration” from countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, while working with those countries to ramp up domestic development.
Notably, that order also expanded pathways for illegal immigrants to pursue asylum after crossing the border and revoked several of Trump’s previous executive orders, including the end of “catch and release” and a memorandum to secure the southern border.
The climate was another key policy area that Trump’s revocation order addressed, as Biden signed many sweeping executive actions on the environment while in office.
Biden signed an order on his first day in office that made it federal policy to “advance environmental justice,” while directing all agency heads to review the first Trump administration’s actions to see if any regulations, orders, or other policies are in conflict with that goal.
Trump rescinded that order along with another that mobilized government resources to tackle the “climate crisis at home and abroad,” including a commitment to the Paris Agreement after Trump backed out during his first term.
There was also Biden’s 2023 presidential memorandum that withdrew certain areas of Alaska from oil or gas drilling to protect “marine mammals, other wildlife, wildlife habitat, scientific research, and Alaska Native subsistence use.”
Trump wrote another executive order opening up vast lands in America’s northernmost state for fossil fuel extraction.
After Trump issued a ban on allowing transgender troops to serve in the military during his first administration, Biden signed an order reversing that policy.
Trump revoked that executive action along with several others based on gender—including one that added “gender identity or sexual orientation” to the definition of “sex [based] discrimination”—and another that added those two concepts to the protections afforded by Title IX, which was created to prohibit sex-based discrimination in schools and education programs.
The president also ended Biden’s order on AI security risks, which required developers of AI systems that may pose national security, economic, and public health or safety threats to the United States to report their safety test results to the federal government prior to releasing them to the public.
Another notable order from Biden that ended yesterday was a reversal of the first Trump administration’s policy to remove millions of U.S. residents without legal immigration status from the nation’s census.
Prior to Trump’s move in 2020, no residents had been excluded from the national population tallies based on immigration status since the first U.S. census in 1790.
Some Republicans accused Biden of trying to increase the number of Electoral College votes in key states following the surge of illegal immigration over the last four years, as the U.S. census data determines the vote count.
—Jacob Burg
BOOKMARKS
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Donte Parrish, a man looking to sue the federal government after being placed in solitary confinement for three years. The confinement followed accusations that Parrish had murdered a fellow inmate, though that charge was eventually dropped.
Trump’s administration is being sued over an executive order filed on Jan. 20 which makes it easier to fire career federal employees if they don’t “faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability.” The suit, brought by the National Treasury Employees Union, alleges Trump is exceeding his authority, and violating the will of Congress by removing these workers’ protected status and turning them into “at-will” employees.
Adm. Linda Fagan was fired from her position as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday morning, though no official explanation has been given. Adm. Kevin Lunday, the vice commandant, will be the acting head for the interim, but will need to be confirmed by the Senate to take over permanently.
The European Commission has announced the addition of new hate speech rules to the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which governs digital media. Among other requirements, social media companies will have to allow outside agencies like Amnesty International to act as “monitoring reporters” to review how they handle hate speech complaints.
Volume 2 of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump will not be released just yet—even in redacted form— following a ruling by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. Cannon had previously halted the release of the report, pending ongoing cases against Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, two co-defendants in Trump’s classified documents case.
—Stacy Robinson
