With the stroke of a pen on Monday, President Donald Trump completely upended the Justice Department’s four-year effort to arrest, prosecute and punish the people who attacked the US Capitol on January 6,

President Donald Trump issued a mass pardon Monday of all defendants of the Jan. 6 riots and signed a number of executive orders, including securing the U.S.-Mexico border, as he spoke with reporters in the Oval Office.

His decision to pardon supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is sure to enrage police, lawmakers and others whose lives were put at risk during an unprecedented episode in modern US history.

Trump's action paves the way for the release from prison of people found guilty of violent attacks on police, as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of failed plots to keep the Republican in power after he lost the 2020 election to former president Joe Biden.

The action comes after Biden immunizes his family and other potential GOP targets before departing.

Dozens of people with ties to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol gathered outside the detention facility in Washington to celebrate Trump’s pardons of those convicted of crimes that day.

Here are some of the most high-profile defendants to receive pardons or sentence commutations. Tarrio, the former chairman of the far-right Proud Boys, received a full pardon from Trump. Tarrio was convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy for his role in planning the Capitol riot that sought to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election defeat of Trump in 2020.