ACLED in the News
Trump’s Pardons and Purges Revive Old Question: Who Counts as a Terrorist? | Pro Publica
Source: Pro Publica | 10 February 2025
The president’s sweeping clemency for Capitol rioters and his administration’s ongoing removal of career national security specialists foretell a permissive new climate for extremist movements, say current and former officials and researchers.
The day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, a surprise visitor joined the crowd outside the D.C. Jail, drawing double takes as people recognized his signature eyepatch: Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right Oath Keepers movement.
By the cold math of the justice system, Rhodes was not supposed to be there. He’d gone to sleep the night before in a Maryland prison cell, where he was serving 18 years as a convicted ringleader of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Yale-educated firebrand who once boasted a nationwide paramilitary network had seen his organization collapse under prosecution.
