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With the stroke of a pen on his first day back in the White House, Trump's order upended the largest prosecution in Justice Department history, freeing from prison people as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups to stop the peaceful transfer of power after his 2020 election loss.

Trump used his opening hours in his second term to erase the records of dozens of people who pleaded guilty to assaulting officers at , and free from prison those convicted of trying to overthrow the government, as he granted reprieve to all 1,500-plus people charged in the insurrection that was sparked after he refused to accept his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

More than 200 people convicted of Jan. 6 crimes were released from federal Bureau of Prisons custody by Tuesday morning, officials told The Associated Press.

The pardons and commutations cement Trump's efforts to downplay the violence that left as the mob fueled by his lies about the 2020 election stormed the Capitol and halted the certification of President Joe Biden's victory.

Trump's decision to grant clemency to even rioters who assaulted police — whom his own vice president recently said "obviously" shouldn't be pardoned — underscores how Trump returned to power emboldened to take actions once believed politically unthinkable. It also shows how Trump plans to radically overhaul the Justice Department that brought criminal charges against him in two cases he contends were politically motivated.

"The implications are clear," said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian. "Trump will go to great lengths to protect those who act in his name. This is the culmination of his effort to rewrite Jan 6, in this case using his presidential muscle to free those who were part of a violent assault on the Capitol."

 on Tuesday defended his decision to  to people convicted of assaulting police officers during the attack and suggested there could be a place in U.S. politics for the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, extremist groups whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the U.S.

Before the Capitol attack, the Proud Boys was a group best known for street fights with anti-fascist activists when Trump infamously told the group to  during his first debate in 2020 with then-presidential candidate .

The former leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy in the most serious charges brought by the Justice Department, were released from prison hours after Trump signed the clemency order. Stewart Rhodes of Granbury, Texas, was serving an , and Enrique Tarrio of Miami was serving a .

Some members of the Proud Boys marched in Washington on Monday as Trump was sworn in to another term.

When pressed 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.”

As defendants celebrated their release outside lockups across the country, the federal prosecutor's office in Washington that spent the last four years charging rioters filed a flurry of motions to dismiss cases that had yet to go to trial. The motions were marked with the name of the man Trump named to lead, at least temporarily, the capital's U.S. attorney's office: Ed Martin, a board member of a group called the Patriot Freedom Project, which portrays the Jan. 6 defendants as victims of political persecution.

About 100 people gathered in frigid temperatures outside the District of Columbia jail, where a handful of Jan. 6 defendants remained behind bars as of Tuesday morning.

Among those in the crowd was Robert Morss, a former Army Ranger and high school history teacher who was for his attacks on police at the Capitol. Morss was released late Monday from a halfway house in Pittsburgh and drove through the night to support defendants jailed in Washington.

Another Jan. 6 defendant, Kevin Loftus, traveled to the jail in Washington after his release from another lockup. Loftus was for violating the terms of his probation after trying to fly overseas to join the Russian military and fight against Ukraine. He said he was going to have the pardon from Trump framed.

"I'm just a working man, dude. People like us don't get presidential pardons," Loftus said.

John Pierce, an attorney who represented several Jan. 6 defendants, said he was "pleasantly surprised" that Trump's pardons went as far as they did, considering Vance's recent comments that suggested only nonviolent offenders would receive relief.

Trump's pick for attorney general, , also indicated she did not believe violent rioters should be pardoned, telling lawmakers at her confirmation hearing that she condemned violence against police.

"He did not have to do this. He had a lot of opposition within his own party," Pierce said. “I do think it showed a lot of courage by President Trump to pardon everybody, so we are obviously grateful for that.” Pierce said clemency for all the defendants was justified because, he contends, they couldn't get a fair jury in the nation's heavily Democratic capital.

The federal courthouse in Washington, which was jammed with Jan. 6 cases over the past four years, was quiet Tuesday as proceedings were abruptly canceled. Hallways that would have teemed with prospective jurors were empty. Judges who would have heard cases were not on the bench.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly made a brief appearance in her sixth-floor courtroom to formally dismiss a Jan. 6 case against a father and son from Minnesota whose trial started last week. The court notified jurors that they didn't need to return this week.

"The parties are excused," the judge said, without commenting on Trump's clemency order.

The son, 22-year-old Caleb Fuller, hugged his attorney and then his mother, Amanda, who wore a sequined jacket with an American flag on the front and the words "Proud American" emblazoned on the back.

Those pardoned include more than 250 people convicted of assault charges, some who attacked police with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and a crutch. Many of the attacks were that showed rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police as officers desperately fought to beat back the angry crowd.

One man was sentenced to seven years in prison for trying to with a metal tomahawk and hurling makeshift weapons at police officers guarding the building. Another man received 20 years behind bars for defending a tunnel, striking an officer in the head with a metal crutch and attacking police with pepper spray and broken pieces of furniture.

Police shot and killed a Trump supporter, , as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded Capitol doorway. Authorities after an investigation. Three other people in the crowd died of .

At least four officers who were at the Capitol later died by suicide. collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.

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