What prosecutions or investigations related to January 6 and foreign contacts have produced convictions or indictments, and how do they differ from treason?
Executive summary
Federal prosecutors pursued hundreds of January 6 defendants, securing hundreds of convictions and dozens of conspiracy indictments—including seditious conspiracy charges against organizers—while Special Counsel and other probes that touched on foreign actors used more conventional statutes rather than treason; treason remains a narrowly defined, rarely used constitutional crime distinct in proof and scope from the charges brought after Jan. 6 [1] [2] [3]. Recent political and executive actions—mass pardons and case deletions—have further reshaped which convictions remain enforceable and which records are publicly accessible [4] [5].
1. What was actually prosecuted and what convictions resulted
Within the first year of prosecutions, federal filings show hundreds of people were charged and hundreds pleaded guilty or were convicted for conduct on and around January 6, 2021; one prominent dataset recorded 716 defendants in the first year with 529 found or pleading guilty and many more later prosecuted in D.C. and elsewhere [1]. Prosecutors pursued a mix of misdemeanors and felonies—assaults on officers, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy counts, and other federal statutes—with many defendants taking plea deals that yielded convictions without trials [1] [6]. Organizers and security-group members drew the heaviest felony exposure: about 57 defendants faced conspiracy charges and roughly 18 were charged with seditious conspiracy, a rare federal felony that DOJ used against certain January 6 leaders [2].
2. High-profile indictments and special-counsel actions
A high-profile outcome was the indictment of then-former President Donald Trump in August 2023 on felony counts tied to January 6—obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy against rights—though the special counsel later moved to dismiss those charges without prejudice after the 2024 election and related legal developments [6] [7]. Prosecutors chose statutes commonly used in federal practice to address alleged schemes to disrupt the certification of the election rather than more novel or constitutionally fraught theories, a strategic choice reflected in the charges laid [6].
3. Foreign contacts and how they were treated in investigations
Investigations that involved foreign contacts typically invoked established criminal statutes used in prior election- and foreign-interference matters; special-counsel and DOJ precedent for handling foreign-directed schemes traces to prior indictments such as those against Russian nationals for conspiracy to defraud the United States in 2016, which show the government’s preference for ordinary criminal statutes over extraordinary constitutional labels [6]. Public reporting in this collection does not catalogue a broad set of treason indictments tied to January 6 involving foreign actors; instead, references to foreign-directed wrongdoing in the broader investigative ecosystem were generally handled through fraud, conspiracy, or election-related statutes [6]. The sources do not provide a comprehensive list of every foreign-contact probe tied specifically to January 6, limiting definitive claims about every such investigation.
4. Why prosecutors steered away from treason and how seditious conspiracy differs
Treason is narrowly defined in the Constitution—limited to levying war against the U.S. or “adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort”—and historically has been invoked only rarely, with modern treason prosecutions essentially nonexistent compared with other federal charges [3] [8]. Seditious conspiracy, by contrast, criminalizes conspiring by force to overthrow or hinder U.S. authority and has a statutory history and precedent that prosecutors found more practical for January 6 cases; it carries heavy penalties but does not require proof of adherence to a foreign enemy in the constitutional sense [3]. Legal commentators and law professors argued that treason would introduce significant complexity with little sentencing benefit and that seditious-conspiracy charges were a better fit for the facts alleged against the organizers [3].
5. Political aftermath, pardons and record access
Executive action and policy shifts changed the post-conviction landscape: mass pardons issued in January 2025 and subsequent removal of DOJ public databases have altered which convictions remain live and have prompted legal and watchdog challenges about record deletions and potential retaliation against prosecutors, complicating the picture of which prosecutions will ultimately stand [4] [5] [9]. These developments underscore that convictions and indictments are legal results specific to charges brought under established statutes—not automatic conferrals of constitutional crimes like treason, which remain legally distinct and rarely pursued [3] [8].