Officials in Washington, D.C. are being accused of delaying the release of January 6 prisoners pardoned by President Donald Trump on Monday. According to a video released Monday night, a crowd of protestors outside a Washington jail insisted that Americans arrested and detained due to their alleged involvement in the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, had not been released as Trump had ordered. Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s White House Liaison to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), confirmed that brothers Andrew and Matthew Valentin had already been released, but protestors claimed that at least a dozen other January 6 prisoners were still being held.

In a separate video, a Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police officer confirmed that “no more are going to be released tonight,” referring to January 6 prisoners. Ingrassia responded, “We will make sure every last one of them gets released. This is completely unacceptable and against the law.” In yet another video taken Tuesday afternoon, Treniss Evans, a former January 6 prisoner who was sentenced to 36 months probation and several fines totaling $5,500 in 2022, announced that the D.C. jail would be releasing over 20 January 6 detainees that day.

One of the first actions that Trump took on his first day back in the White House was issue sweeping pardons to Americans imprisoned for their alleged involvement in the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. According to Trump’s executive order, over 1,500 Americans were pardoned and the sentences of another 14 were commuted. According to a report from The Blaze, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) began releasing prisoners Monday evening.

While some — including former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — have criticized Trump’s pardons, claiming that “no one should excuse violence,” others have defended Trump’s pardons, including Trump himself. “These people have already served years in prison, and they’ve served them viciously. It’s a disgusting prison. It’s been horrible. It’s inhumane. It’s been a terrible, terrible thing,” Trump said Tuesday when questioned on his pardons by a reporter. He pointed out that his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, pardoned “a lot of criminals” Monday before leaving office.

“These are criminals that he gave a pardon to, and you should be asking that question, why did he give a pardon to all of these people that committed crimes?” Trump asked the reporter. He continued, “Why did he give a pardon to the J6 unselect committee when they burned and destroyed all documents which showed that they did what was wrong, not me? Why did they give a pardon to all of his relatives, his brother, who made millions of dollars?” Trump added, “To all these different people he gave pardons. That’s the question you should be answering.”

Others have pointed to the unnecessarily harsh treatment January 6 prisoners have suffered as justification for the pardons, referring to them as political prisoners or hostages. Legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said that the Biden administration’s aggression “really made the case for these pardons, and it was hard to do because most of us supported the people responsible for the riot being held accountable.” He continued, “But the Justice Department unleashed what one of its top lawyers called a shock and awe campaign and they just scooped up hundreds of people. They often demanded really excessive sentences in my view; most of these people were charged with just trespass or unlawful entry.” He further observed that most prisoners “were not violent” but the Biden administration “tended to oppose bail.”

“They kept a number of them for a very long time in segregation. In some cases, they demanded limitations on what people could say or read or associate after they were released. All of this tended to undermine their case,” Turley continued. He added, “And so when the president campaigned on this issue, I think a lot of people wanted to see this chapter closed. And he certainly did that.”

According to Breitbart News, Vice President J.D. Vance was a driving force behind the January 6 pardons. Vance’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, clarified, “Due to the corrupt process of these prosecutions, President Trump rightly decided to grant a broad pardon to all wrongfully convicted January 6 protestors.” Van Kirk added, “Despite the mainstream media’s obsession with January 6, the outgoing administration’s application of presidential pardons for members of the Biden family are far more deserving of additional media scrutiny.”

Americans have also reacted to the pardons over social media, showing broad support. Referring to the case of elderly Reed Christiansen, who spent three years in prison, one social media user posted, “This guy spent more time in jail than some people convicted of assault, manslaughter, rape. For that reason alone the blanket pardons were appropriate. The sentences people received were ridiculous.”