How many individuals were charged with crimes related to the January 6 Capitol riot?
Executive summary
Nearly 1,600 people had been criminally charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by early 2025, with contemporaneous reporting listing figures of about 1,575 or “more than 1,500” before a mass pardon and case closures in January 2025 [1] [2] [3]. Reporting since then notes the DOJ and other federal actors continued to pursue related probes — including a December 2025 arrest in the pipe‑bomb case — but also that a blanket pardon in January 2025 affected the status of many prosecutions [4] [5] [1].
1. The headline number: roughly 1,500–1,600 people were charged
Multiple reputable summaries and databases compiled in 2024–2025 put the count of people criminally charged in connection with the Capitol attack at about 1,575–1,600. Britannica reported “nearly 1,600 persons” charged by January 6, 2025 [1]. Media and court‑tracking projects cited a similar range — NPR’s database and other trackers listed roughly 1,575 cases before administrative changes to court listings [2]. PBS noted “more than 1,500” charged as of its January 2025 overview [3].
2. What “charged” meant in practice: a wide range of alleged conduct
Those charged spanned nonviolent trespass and property offenses to violent assaults and conspiracy counts. Federal filings included charges for unlawful entry, destruction of property, assaulting officers, and conspiracy or obstruction of an official proceeding under statutes central to the post‑riot prosecutions [6] [3]. By early 2025, hundreds had been convicted or pleaded guilty while many others remained pending or awaiting sentence [3].
3. Case counts versus convictions: the legal landscape changed quickly
Tracking the number charged is not the same as counting convictions. As of January 6, 2025, reporting noted about 250 convictions by judges and at least 1,020 guilty pleas in various stages of resolution [3]. The criminal landscape then shifted dramatically when President Trump issued broad pardons and commutations upon taking office on January 20, 2025, wiping the slate clean for the vast majority of the charged individuals and leaving only a small subset with standing convictions or unresolved matters [5] [1].
4. Databases, erasures and transparency issues complicate the tally
A U.S. Attorney’s Office page that tracked “breach” cases was available early in 2025 but then removed around January 24, 2025, shortly after the blanket pardon; news organizations documented the disappearance and highlighted that NPR and other outlets had separate, searchable datasets listing roughly 1,575 cases prior to the pardons [2]. Subsequent reporting has raised questions about how public records and DOJ filings were edited or removed, complicating retrospective accounting [7].
5. The pipe‑bomb case and continued investigations show the story didn’t end
Even after thousands of January 6 prosecutions and a mass pardon, other investigations linked to the broader events continued. In December 2025 the FBI arrested and charged a Virginia man in connection with pipe bombs left outside the DNC and RNC hours before the riot — a separate high‑profile development that reporters tied to the wider January 6 timeline and ongoing federal probes [4] [8] [9]. That arrest underscores that law enforcement activity related to events surrounding January 6 continued even after the main wave of prosecutions [4].
6. Conflicting portrayals and political context matter
News outlets and officials described different postures: DOJ and prosecutors framed the prosecutions as rigorous accountability [3], while political actors sought pardons and have since moved to erase or downplay aspects of court records according to reporting [7]. Some commentators and sources have promoted conspiracy theories around peripheral incidents (e.g., the pipe bombs), which mainstream outlets have either debunked or reported without evidence of official involvement; those narratives persist in the public debate [10] [4].
7. Limits of the public record and what’s not in current reporting
Available sources provide consistent mid‑2024 to early‑2025 counts of about 1,500–1,600 charged, plus documentation of convictions and pleas. Available sources do not mention a definitive final, post‑pardon, reconciled national tally that accounts for every case status change after January 20, 2025; they likewise do not provide a single updated figure that includes the effects of later DOJ edits and pardons [2] [7]. For precise, up‑to‑date case counts you must consult maintained legal databases or the DOJ’s public docket entries, noting some records were altered or removed in 2025 [2] [7].
Takeaway: Contemporary reporting and legal trackers uniformly placed the charged count at roughly 1,500–1,600 people before the mass January 2025 pardons; subsequent executive actions and administrative changes altered the legal status of most of those cases, and later investigations — like the December 2025 pipe‑bomb arrest — show the broader probe remained active even as prosecutions were curtailed [1] [2] [4].