In his bid for reelection, former President Donald Trump is positioning the Jan. 6, 2021,
attack on the Capitol Building as a central component of his campaign.
The attack, which led to the deaths of five people and caused injury to an estimated 140 police officers, was the deadliest attack on the Capitol since 1998. While Trump denied involvement directly following the attack, he has since embraced it as an act of patriotism, going so far as to describe the pre-riot rally as a "love fest" in an interview with Fox News. Leading up to the election, he has promised to pardon those who have been "unfairly" arrested.
Since March 2024, Trump has publicly referred to the convicted rioters as hostages, thus altering the terminology to strengthen his campaign. This revisionist approach has fueled his supporters, many of whom now view those incarcerated as martyrs for the cause—some Trump followers have declared him a martyr as well after his surviving an assassination attempt on July 15.
In a statement, Judge Royce C. Lamberth warned not to let Jan. 6 become "a precedent for further violence against political opponents or governmental institutions."
Right-wing terrorism in the U.S. has found tragic, deadly, and racist expression in crimes. Take the 2022 shooting in which a white nationalist murdered 10 Black people inside Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York. Or when, in 2023, three Black people died at the hands of a far-right 21-year-old inside a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida. A report by the Anti-Defamation League linked white supremacists to 21 of the 25 domestic-extremist-related murders in 2022.
As a singular event, the Jan. 6 riot was the culmination of years of political division and mounting activity and violence by right-wing extremists.
As far back as 2009, the Department of Homeland Security noted a cyclicality to the emergence of right-wing extremism, which was catalyzed in the 2000s by an economic downturn and the election of America's first Black president.
To paint a picture of how widespread such activity has been across the U.S., Stacker investigated where the most Jan. 6 rioters have been arrested using data from the Department of Justice as of July 30, 2024. States are ranked by the number of rioters arrested in that state; ties are broken by rioters per million residents, though some ties remain.
Of the 1,297 arrests documented on the Department of Justice's database, 104 were not included in the ranking because they did not include arrest locations. Wyoming and North Dakota were also excluded because the states reported no arrests.
An estimated 2,000 to 2,500 people entered the Capitol Building during the Jan. 6 riot. As of January 2024, the DOJ has charged more than 1,424 people in association with the riot, either for actions occurring that day or for having a connection to those who performed them. Of those, roughly 820 have pleaded guilty, and about 884 have been adjudicated and sentenced.
The DOJ is still actively pursuing cases; full details on all of the current cases associated with the Capitol siege are publicly available from a variety of sources. In July 2024, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to narrow the obstruction charge for Joseph Fischer in Fischer v. United States. This decision affects the prosecution of 350 convicted defendants with the same charge in the Jan. 6 riots.
On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump is "entitled to some immunity" from the four felony counts to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 election and returned the case to the trial court. His trial is now delayed until after the 2024 election. In her dissent, which she read aloud from the bench, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor wrote: "When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution ... With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
Meanwhile, arrests related to the insurrection continue: William George Knight, a man with distinctive blonde dreadlocks and tattoos on his face, was arrested on May 26, 2024. He is accused of "ramming a giant metal-framed 'TRUMP' sign into a line of police officers" and then shoving an officer. Videos show him as one of the first to break through the barriers at the Capitol.
Read on to see where the most rioters have been arrested so far.
