One day after President Donald Trump issued a legal reprieve to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, some of the defendants started having their cases dismissed or even began to be released from custody.

By Tuesday afternoon, two of the country’s most prominent far-right extremists — Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia — who played central roles in the Capitol attack had been set free.

Tarrio, who was serving a 22-year term for a conviction on charges of seditious conspiracy, received a pardon from Trump and walked out of a prison in Pollock, Louisiana. Rhodes, who was serving an 18-year term on similar charges, had his sentence commuted to time served and was freed from a prison in Cumberland, Maryland.

Defense lawyers said that another member of the Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, who was one of Tarrio’s co-defendants, was also released after Trump commuted his sentence. Biggs had been serving 17 years in prison following his own conviction on seditious conspiracy charges.

Additional members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were expected to be freed in the coming days.

Defendants have also started to be released from the local jail in Washington, where several rioters have been held in recent years in a special area nicknamed the “patriot wing.” On Monday night, two brothers from Pennsylvania, Matthew and Andrew Valentin, were set free, only days after being sentenced to 2½ years each on charges of assaulting police.

“They helped break the police line by shoving a metal barricade into officers, and Matthew Valentin violently grabbed an officer’s neck,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo for the men. “They followed that assault by stealing police batons and berating officers.”

On Tuesday, Trump defended his decision to grant the pardons.

When asked by a reporter about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and whether there was a place for them in politics, Trump said, “Well, we have to see. They’ve been given a pardon. I thought their sentences were ridiculous and excessive.”

When pressed about his decision to free people from prison who were shown on camera viciously attacking Capitol police officers, Trump declared, “I am a friend of police, more than any president who’s ever been in this office.”

Two major law enforcement groups, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, issued a joint statement saying they were “deeply discouraged” by the pardons and commutations and believed those convicted should serve their full sentences.

Supporters gather outside D.C. jail

On Tuesday, dozens of supporters gathered outside the Washington jail, blaring conservative songs over loudspeakers. “Trump won and you know it. Fox News won’t even show it,” went one medley.

Three Republican members of Congress stopped by — Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona, Chip Roy of Texas and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

Rachel Powell, 44, who smashed windows at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was convicted on nine felony and misdemeanor charges, was released from the jail Tuesday afternoon and immediately joined the crowd.

Her hair tucked under a bright pink Trump baseball cap, she showed off a Gothic-style stick-and-poke tattoo of “J6” on her arm that she said she got while in detention. Powell described her anxious anticipation in awaiting a pardon.

“It’s like when you’re 6 years old and you know that Santa’s coming in the morning,” she said.

Cynthia Hughes, the founder of one of the many organizations that made up a vast network of support and funds for the detainees, held tightly to Powell’s arm, repeating a phrase popular among the crowd when they speak of the president: “Promises made, promises kept.”

Others were released Monday night and Tuesday from detention facilities around the country.

William Sarsfield, who was convicted of disrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory, had been freed in Pennsylvania hours earlier and drove to Washington to be outside the jail to greet others being released. He wore a prison-issued sweatsuit and showed off the orange canvas sneakers that he received when he was held at the Washington jail.

Asked whether he believed that Trump made the right choice in issuing pardons, he appeared to suggest it was a tough call, but ultimately at the president’s discretion. “There’s no right way to do unprecedented things,” he said.

Robert Morss, 31, a veteran Army Ranger charged with assaulting officers Jan. 6, was released from a halfway house in Pennsylvania on Monday night and also drove to be at the jail where he had once been detained.

The pardons, he said, were pivotal to Trump’s agenda.

“Donald Trump isn’t just doing his boys a favor,” Morss said. “The situation is much bigger than that. America is supposed to be better than and bigger than political prisoners and political warfare.”

Cases dropped

Aside from pardons and sentence commutations, Trump ordered officials in his Justice Department to dismiss any cases against Jan. 6 defendants that were still moving through U.S. District Court in Washington, where all of the proceedings have unfolded.

On Tuesday morning, several judges there granted motions filed by federal prosecutors to drop Jan. 6-related cases, more or less without a fight.

One of the cases that Trump’s new interim U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, asked to dismiss in light of the president’s pardons was that of Ryan Samsel, a Pennsylvania barber who engaged in the very first confrontation with officers at the Capitol, serving as the tipping point of the riot. Prosecutors, citing Samsel’s long criminal history — including extensive violence against women — had sought a 20-year prison term for him. Now, after the change of administrations, they are seeking to drop the charges altogether.

Another case, for three members of the same family, was in the middle of a jury trial when prosecutors asked the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, to dismiss it. The defendants — Kenneth, Caleb and Nicholas Fuller — had been charged with multiple counts, including felony civil disorder, for taking part in a shoving match against police officers, prosecutors said.

In court Tuesday, Kollar-Kotelly simply asked the three men whether they agreed with the government’s decision to drop the case. When each one, not surprisingly, said he did, the judge declared the trial over and the men went free.

Caleb Fuller has denied that he saw or engaged in any violence and said the dismissal by the judge was a just conclusion to the case.

“We didn’t go there that day with the intention to hurt anyone — and we didn’t hurt anyone,” he said. “So being dismissed, I think it’s valid.”

This report includes information from the Associated Press.