Meet some of the violent Jan. 6 rioters Donald Trump keeps calling 'hostages'

WASHINGTON — The way former President Donald Trump tells it, the men and women who stormed the Capitol because they believed his lies about the 2020 presidential election are "hostages" and “unbelievable patriots” who are being mistreated by the justice system.

But an NBC News review of hundreds of cases against Jan. 6 defendants found that just 15 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack are currently being held pretrial at the order of federal judges. That number of pretrial detainees has decreased in recent months, as more and more Jan. 6 defendants have taken plea deals or been found guilty, and as federal judges have been hesitant to hold new arrestees in pre-trial custody more than three years after the attack.

Though Trump said on Jan. 7, 2021, that “those who broke the law” during the Capitol riot would “pay,” he has made his defense of incarcerated Jan. 6 defendants a major plank of his 2024 campaign. Trump has called Jan. 6 detainees “hostages” and even opens rallies by playing a recording from the “J6 Prison Choir.” Trump has said he’ll pardon “a large portion” of the rioters “very early on” if he wins in 2024 and recently vowed to “free the Jan. 6 Hostages” as one of his “first acts as your next President.”

More than 1,350 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and prosecutors have secured more than 950 convictions. Low-level defendants routinely receive sentences of probation, but about 500 have received periods of incarceration.

The overwhelming majority of those charged have been released before trial. NBC News identified 15 defendants who have not been convicted or entered a plea who are currently incarcerated; seven of them are among the 27 Jan. 6 defendants being held