Trump Pardoned 1,500 January 6 Rioters and a Judge Just Ruled He Can Still Be Sued for Sending Them

Turns out you can’t pardon your way out of a civil lawsuit

Trump thought he’d handled January 6th.

He waltzed back into the White House in January 2025, pardoned or freed all 1,500-plus rioters on day one, called them hostages and patriots, and basically declared the whole thing over. Done. Moving on. Very cool, very legal, totally a thing presidents can do.

He forgot about the cops.

Judge Amit Mehta ruled Tuesday that Trump can be sued - civilly, personally, in open court - by the Capitol Police officers and members of Congress who say he sent that crowd after them. The “Stop the Steal” speech on the Ellipse, nearly all the tweets he’d fired off leading up to it - none of that, per Mehta, was a president doing his job. That was a private citizen trying to steal an election. You don’t get immunity for that.

Trump’s lawyers argued January 6th was official presidential activity.

Mehta wrote 79 pages explaining why most of it wasn’t.

What makes this so good is that this is the same judge who ruled the same way in 2022. Then an appeals court agreed with him. Now it’s back at the trial level under a stricter legal standard and Mehta still looked at everything and said yeah, no. Trump has lost this exact argument in this exact court multiple times and is somehow still losing it.

And the pardons?

Totally useless here. You can’t pardon yourself out of a civil suit. The 1,500 guys are free, the mob is scattered, the criminal cases are gone - and the Capitol cops are still coming. There could be an actual trial where Capitol Police officers get to make the case in open court, with discovery and testimony and all of it, that the sitting president of the United States incited an insurrection.

He spent five years trying to make January 6th disappear. January 6th is not disappearing.

Sources

• Trump isn’t immune from civil claims that his Jan. 6 rally speech incited riot, judge rules
• Trump not immune from civil claims Jan. 6 rally speech incited riot, judge rules
• Statement from Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on Decision Ruling Trump Can be Held Accountable for January 6 Insurrection
• Trump isn’t immune from civil claims his 2021 speech incited riot

Correction, September 27th, 2026: This post first said that, per Judge Mehta, the posts Trump fired off while the riot unfolded weren’t part of his job - Mehta ruled that the two tweets Trump sent during the riot, and his Rose Garden video, were official acts he can’t be sued over.

Update, September 27th, 2026: A few lines now say it’s the officers and members of Congress who say Trump sent the crowd after them, that most rioters were pardoned and 14 had their sentences commuted, that Mehta found most - not all - of Trump’s January 6th conduct unofficial, and that a trial could come, with an appeal almost certain.