Rhodes and Tarrio were among the most prominent defendants from January 6 and had received some of the harshest punishments.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes says he felt relief when he heard President Donald Trump was taking action to pardon him and other Jan. 6 defendants. (AP Video: Nathan Ellgren)

President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned more than 1,000 people charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and commuted the sentences of leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

The move, in effect, validated the far-right leader’s defiant claim that his criminal prosecution was a kind of political persecution.

Trump's blanket order came the same day that Joe Biden used the final minutes of his presidency to issue pre-emptive pardons for his brothers and sister, as well as members of the US House of Representatives committee whose investigation into the Capitol riot concluded Trump was to blame.

The founder of the right-wing 'Oath Keepers' militia, who himself was recently had his 18-year- prison sentence commuted, appeared outside of D.C.'s Central Det

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes were released from prison following President Donald Trump's pardon for Jan. 6 rioters.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes says he felt relief when he heard President Donald Trump was taking action to pardon him and other Jan. 6 defendants.

On Monday evening, just hours after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Senate passed the Laken Riley Act, an extreme bill that would allow for the deportation and detention of any undocumented immigrant merely suspected of a nonviolent crime. And they did it with the help of 12 Democrats.