Donald Trump's electoral victory on November 5 has sparked an explosion of enthusiasm among imprisoned January 6 rioters and their supporters, as many expect that the former president will pardon them once he returns office in 2025.
"After four long years I'm finally coming home. It's so surreal," Edward Jacob "Jake" Lang, who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and was arrested in the same month, told Newsweek on Wednesday, the same day Trump was elected president for a second time. "Hollywood couldn't have written a better story."
Lang, who was 25 at the time of the Capitol riots, is accused of wielding a dangerous weapon against Capitol Police officers and obstruction of an official proceeding. Footage from the riot shows him swatting a bat at Capitol Police officers "multiple times," according to an FBI affidavit from January 15, 2021. Lang, who describes himself as a political prisoner, is still awaiting trial.
In a post published on X on Wednesday, Lang celebrated Trump's victory as his time to go home. "I'M COMING HOME!!!! THE JANUARY 6 POLITICAL PRISONERS ARE FINALLY COMING HOME!!!!" he wrote. "In just 75 days on January 20th 2025, when Donald J Trump is inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, he will pardon all of the J6 Hostages," Lang added.
His hope has been echoed by other rioters and those who campaign for their release, who are now grasping on to Trump's campaign promise to pardon some involved in the January 6 violence.
"As a Trump supporter, the only elected legislator prosecuted for January 6, and a peaceful 2020 protestor, I'm 100 percent confident President-elect Trump will pardon the non-violent protesters," Derrick Evans, a January 6 rioter who was sentenced to three months in prison in June 2022, told Newsweek.
"And you might even see J6ers joining the administration or going back to DC as members of Congress. Or Senate even," he added.
Paula Calloway, who leads the Patriot Mail Project in support of imprisoned rioters, told Newsweek that "Trump's well-deserved victory" was a shared victory for the January 6 community. "I do expect pardons for everyone and we hope they come quickly, as this has ruined and bankrupted so many lives," she said.
While Trump has promised to pardon some of those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he has not specified whom among the more than 1,400 rioters charged would receive such treatment. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt previously said his administration would decide "on a case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House."
Among those federally charged in connection with the storming of the Capitol, over 500 were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding police; some 1,000 have pleaded guilty or were found guilty during trial.
The longest sentence was handed to former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was given 22 years in prison for orchestrating a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden. David Nicholas Dempsey, who repeatedly attacked Capitol Police officers with flagpoles and other makeshift weapons on January 6, 2021, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in August this year.
The Trump campaign has not excluded any rioters, including the most violent like Tarrio and Dempsey, from possibly being pardoned. Newsweek contacted Trump's campaign for comment by email on Friday early morning, outside of standard working hours.