Jon Lizak ‘22, a former president of the Binghamton University College Republicans who pleaded guilty to his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack, was pardoned by President Donald Trump earlier this week.
Lizak pleaded guilty in late 2023 and was sentenced to 36 months of probation, three days of intermittent confinement, and ordered to pay several fines. He graduated from the University in 2022 with a degree in business administration, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by his attorney in 2023.
The attorney, Kevin J. Keating, did not return a request for comment.
The pardon of Lizak and around 1,500 others fulfills a promise Trump made on the campaign trail when he repeatedly called the rioters “patriots” and “hostages.”
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation,” read Trump’s executive order, called “Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences For Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
With the sweeping exercise of forgiveness solely afforded to the president, efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of the Capitol attack have effectively halted. The New York Times reported that several people convicted of the most serious crimes, including seditious conspiracy and assaulting police officers, had been freed from prison.
These included some members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, far-right militias whose affiliates were sentenced to some of the longest prison terms. Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, a founder of the Oath Keepers, received 22-year and 18-year sentences, respectively.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Lizak and four others entered the Capitol building “minutes after it was initially breached,” remaining inside for approximately 30 minutes and entering the office of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He watched as an accomplice assaulted a police officer with a bike rack, the U.S. attorney said.
He was arrested on Sept. 20, 2022, and signed the plea agreement with the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia on May 5, 2023. On Sept. 25, with his attorney’s sentencing memorandum, Lizak submitted a letter to the court admitting, “I was wrong.”
In the letter, he described having a hard time relating to peers once at college and how joining a group of friends in 2019 contributed to a “heinous dehumanization that led many fools like myself to blindly follow the call to attend the rally on January 6th.”
“Unlike two years ago, today I can confidently say that I am happy with myself and the path I have walked,” the letter ended. “The man who sits before you today is one far removed from the mistakes of his past, and I ask the court for leniency in their ultimate decision today.”
Lizak’s letter was also filed alongside character references from his fiancee and her sister and an additional exhibit filed under seal, making it publicly inaccessible.
When he was at the University, Lizak, the College Republicans and the conservative organization Young America’s Foundation sued the Student Association and several University administrators, including President Harvey Stenger, alleging violations of their constitutional rights stemming from a tabling incident in 2019.
The College Republicans in 2022 denounced Lizak’s actions at the Capitol as news broke of his arrest and when Pipe Dream reported on his sentencing in 2023. The organization did not immediately return a request for comment.