Was anybody charged with the crime of insurrection on January 6, 2021?
Executive summary
The Justice Department and federal prosecutors brought hundreds of criminal charges related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack — including obstruction of an official proceeding, assault on officers, entering restricted buildings, weapons offenses and conspiracy counts — but the reporting provided does not show anyone being charged specifically with the statutory crime labeled “insurrection” in the sources supplied [1] [2] [3]. Senior prosecutors publicly said seditious conspiracy or insurrection were possible avenues of investigation early on, and Congress impeached President Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” language that is political and distinct from a criminal charge list [4] [5].
1. What prosecutors actually charged: a mass of federal crimes, not a single-labeled “insurrection” roster
Federal filings and public lists from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia document hundreds of defendants charged with a range of federal crimes tied to the breach of the Capitol — obstruction of the electoral-certification proceeding, assault and battery on law enforcement officers, theft, destruction of government property, entering restricted buildings, and weapons offenses — and public databases and reporting catalog those cases and convictions [1] [3] [2]. News outlets and legal trackers commonly describe the prosecutions as the largest criminal investigation in DOJ history and report thousands of FBI personnel working the probe while over a thousand people were arrested and charged on various counts [4] [6].
2. Early statements and possible statutes: seditious conspiracy and “insurrection” were floated, not universally filed
In the immediate aftermath, the interim U.S. Attorney suggested rioters could be charged with seditious conspiracy or insurrection, signaling prosecutors were considering serious statutes beyond the more common misdemeanor and assault counts, but that statement was descriptive of prosecutorial intent and investigation strategy rather than a definitive list of charges against named defendants in the sources provided [4]. DOJ press releases and case lists from early February highlighted an initial set of federal charges against a small group and emphasized the ongoing nature of the inquiry, while subsequent filings broadened to hundreds of defendants across many federal offenses [7] [1].
3. Political and public-language uses of “insurrection”: impeachment, committee reports, and labels
Congress used the term in a political context when the House impeached President Trump on a single article — incitement of insurrection — a legislative action distinct from criminal prosecution [5]. House committees and advocacy documents have since labeled many participants “insurrectionists” and released reports characterizing the events as an attempted coup or insurrection, but those characterizations coexist with the granular criminal docket that lists specific federal offenses rather than a widely applied criminal charge named “insurrection” in the materials here [8] [9].
4. Pardons, politics and the limits of available reporting
Subsequent developments bear on how the question reads in public life: reporting shows President Trump later pardoned or commuted sentences for people charged in the Jan. 6 cases and political statements and government websites have alternately called participants “insurrectionists” or minimized the event, demonstrating a contentious overlay of law and politics [10] [11]. The sources provided document many prosecutions and political labels but do not include a definitive list of defendants charged under the specific federal “insurrection” statute, and absent a source that explicitly lists such indictments, this reporting must limit its claim to what the documents show: numerous federal prosecutions for crimes committed on January 6, and early prosecutorial talk about seditious conspiracy or insurrection as possible charges [1] [4].