President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office on Monday that he was granting pardons and commutations to about 1,500 defendants charged over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, marking one of the most expansive clemency announcements in history.

Trump’s pardons and commutations for the defendants, a stunning repudiation of the Justice Department’s wide-ranging four-year investigation into the Capitol attack, extended to nonviolent rioters, including those who damaged and stole property, and those who engaged in violence.

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“They’ve been treated very unfair,” Trump said. “The judges have been absolutely brutal. The prosecutors have been brutal,” Trump announced to reporters as part of his day one executive actions.

Trump said the violent defendants, who had stormed restricted areas of the Capitol in protest of the 2020 election results, had “been in jail for a long time already.”

“These people have been destroyed,” Trump said.

At least 1,583 people faced charges over the Capitol attack and the Department of Justice secured guilty pleas or convictions for at least 1,230 of them, according to federal data. About 200 pleaded guilty to felonies that included assaulting police officers or using a deadly weapon against law enforcement.

A Senate report found that during the riot, some officers suffered brain injuries, cracked ribs, and chemical burns. One officer lost an eye, while another was stabbed.

Dozens of other defendants faced charges of stealing or destroying government property.

The DOJ secured 10 convictions on rare seditious conspiracy charges, and those defendants, who are mostly members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, are all serving yearslong prison sentences.

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was sprayed during the riot with a chemical irritant, suffered multiple strokes in the aftermath of the incident and died the day after it. Washington’s chief medical examiner said Sicknick died of natural causes but also told the Washington Post the riot had a role in his death. Sicknick’s brother joined more than 100,000 people in signing a petition opposing the pardons.

“My brother was just 42 years old. Nothing will erase the events from that day or bring Brian back. But pardoning the insurrectionists is a blow to every single person who cares about fairness, justice, and freedom,” Craig Sicknick said in a statement.

Trump’s announcement meant he made good on his repeated promises during his campaign to carry out a large-scale pardon operation at the start of his presidency for the defendants, whom he frequently described as “hostages.”

Democrats and some Republicans have criticized Trump’s use of the term, calling it offensive. Former Vice President Mike Pence said last year it was “unacceptable” to describe “people that are moving through our justice system” as hostages.

Defense attorneys and the defendants themselves had been anxiously awaiting Trump’s announcements, as the president remained vague about his plans through Inauguration Day, only saying he would grant clemency to a “large portion” of the defendants. His spokeswoman had maintained that the pardons would be granted on a case-by-case basis.

Numerous defendants still in the court process had asked judges in recent weeks to pause their proceedings, citing their expectation that they would be recipients of Trump’s pardons. Meanwhile, others have been urging Trump to grant pardons to all defendants, arguing the DOJ’s entire four-year prosecution of them was tainted by politics.

Rachel Powell of Pennsylvania was sentenced to nearly five years in prison last year after she was found guilty of assaulting officers and taking an ice axe to a window of the Capitol. Powell’s three daughters recently told CNN that they were certain Trump would pardon her. It is unclear at this stage if Powell is a recipient of one of the pardons.

“He will keep to what he said,” one of the daughters said. “He will keep his word. He is going to pardon her.”

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Trump’s pardons will terminate all proceedings against defendants still in the court process and restore civil rights, such as the ability to vote, for those who lost them as a result of their convictions.

Former U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves of Washington, D.C., who led the prosecutions, addressed Trump’s anticipated pardons in a recent television interview, indicating he took solace in the fact that the pardons would not erase defendants’ records.

“A pardon does not wipe away what occurred,” Graves said. “There will always be a record of what occurred. There will always be vindication of rule of law, and there’s been substantial accountability for hundreds of people involved in illegal conduct that day.”

This story is developing.