Joy, Anger and Little Remorse Outside D.C. Jail After Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons

The crowd cheered and the music blared.

On Monday night outside the D.C. jail, some of the family members, fervent supporters and former detainees gathered there swiveled their hips and pumped their fists to a remix of “Y.M.C.A.,” in a scene reminiscent of a Trump rally.

They were there to celebrate President Trump’s broad grant of clemency to nearly all 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants, though only a dozen of those pardoned remained in this particular jail on the morning of his inauguration. The nightly vigil, which has lasted for close to two and a half years, has served as the emotional epicenter of support for those who have been prosecuted in connection with the violent attack on the Capitol four years ago.

Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who was fatally shot by the police as rioters tried to storm the building on Jan. 6, 2021, typically kicked off the gathering with a roll call of all the detainees across the country. But not on Monday.

“We’re going to skip that tonight because it’s just a variable,” Ms. Witthoeft said. “Everybody’s getting out.”

Only two men, Andrew and Matthew Valentin, brothers who were sentenced just days ago, walked free on Monday, according to Paul Ingrassia, the newly appointed White House liaison to the Justice Department.

Brandon Fellows, 30, who served time at the D.C. jail after being convicted of, among other charges, obstructing the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, addressed the crowd. Mr. Fellows, who was photographed smoking marijuana in the office of Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, stressed that those who would be leaving prison had a long road ahead.

“Please keep in mind, the people that are coming out, it’s going to be a little rough — it’s going to be tough,” Mr. Fellows said.

Mary Pollock, 24, had accompanied her father from Florida in hopes of reuniting with her siblings, Olivia and Jonathan Pollock, who were being held at the jail after they broke the terms of their release two years ago by going on the run.

“They’ve kept their spirits up in there,” she said. “They’ve been encouraging the other J6 prisoners.”

The scene outside the jail was a departure from the usual vigil held in the back of the facility, under windows that the detainees can peer out of. Men and women who were imprisoned and their families called supporters throughout the night, updating them on the status of their release — but also to proclaim their innocence, as they ordinarily do.

The crowd had been buoyed by Mr. Trump’s promise to issue sweeping pardons on Day 1 of his presidency. They were already anticipating the fulfillment of another vow of his, to pursue his rivals by prosecuting them. Mr. Trump told NBC News in December that the entire Jan. 6 committee “should go to jail.”

“They need to sit in that jail — not the innocent people,” said Tia Myers, 53, from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, who said she was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and was investigated by the F.B.I. although she did not go inside the building.

Many at the rally sought to rewrite the violent history of the Jan. 6 attack, a narrative that Mr. Trump himself has endorsed at rallies, in news conferences and on television.

“We saw the cops waving everybody in,” Ms. Myers said of herself and others who had come to the Capitol that day out of a false conviction that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election. She quickly added, “We didn’t go in, obviously.”

Scott Tapley, from Goshen, Ind., who brought his two adult daughters to Washington for the inauguration, as he did four years ago to watch Mr. Trump address his supporters on Ellipse on Jan. 6, said the people who had gone inside did so to protest “peacefully and patriotically,” only to be treated unfairly by the justice system.

“I’m so glad to see they’re being released,” Mr. Tapley said. “This is just an unspeakably joyous, happy day.”

Even before Mr. Trump formally issued his pardons, Peyton, 20, and Sarah Reffitt, 28, were more reserved in expressing their joy. As the daughters of Guy Reffitt, a member of the Texas Three Percenters militia who was the first person to be charged with a crime for Jan. 6, they had seen their lives upended by the events of that day.

Peyton, tears in her eyes, said she wished her father, who was currently detained in Oklahoma, was home so she could annoy him. But her family had a lot of healing to do, she added — her brother, Jackson, had turned her father in to the authorities and their home was raided 10 days after the attack on the Capitol.

She said she believed that her father should be held accountable, but she worried that his time in jail and her mother’s desire to free him were “toxic.”

“Everything else was taken and this is what they were left with.” She added, “They can’t just walk away — it’s sad.”