CHICAGO (WLS) — What is billed as the largest criminal investigation ever conducted in the United States is about to come to a screeching halt, before it is finished.

More than 1,500 people already charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots could all be pardoned, and new cases will be brought when Donald Trump takes over the presidency.

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President-elect Trump has promised to begin rewriting history for those already accused of these crimes, and at least as many others who remain at large.

But Biden’s Justice Department continues to track down, arrest and prosecute the people who brought down the Capitol on January 6, and among the targets is Trump, who could pardon himself, along with many other people involved that day.

The FBI continues to release new videos from Jan. 6 as Justice Department officials focus on the still-unidentified rioters who attacked law enforcement that day.

Two men from the Chicago suburbs are the latest from Illinois to be charged with crimes and misdemeanors. Federal court records mention their names in criminal complaints dated Election Day last week.

But Trump’s election that day could bring a twist of fate that would seem to ensure their good fortune and a stroke of luck for many of those already convicted or under investigation.

Trump has promised to release the so-called political prisoners of January 6.

“He is allowed to do this because he has the pardon power, which is one of the most powerful tools in the chief executive’s toolbox given to the president by our Constitution,” said Juliette Sorensen , director of rule of law at Loyola University. Institute.

Former federal prosecutor and ABC7 chief legal analyst Gil Soffer predicts Mr. Trump will follow through.

“First, when it comes to demonstrators or violent demonstrators who have broken the law and who have not yet been charged, he can obviously order his Justice Department not to file charges. If there are pending cases that have not yet been charged, resolved, tried and convicted He can drop these charges He can dismiss these cases and as for those who have already been convicted he can grant them a pardon. ?I don’t know, but he says he will, and there’s a good chance he will,” Soffer said.

Among those wearing January 6 jackets is the president-elect himself. Trump will soon have the opportunity to pardon the rioters, the police attackers and himself for all crimes associated with the riot.

“It is clear that with every legal challenge President-elect Trump has faced, both criminal and civil, his defiance and characterization of those legal challenges has fueled his support. His fundraising is improving as a result criminal charges. He characterizes the legal efforts against him as political conspiracies. So, in my opinion, he is undermining the rule of law and equality before the law. many of his supporters,” Sorensen said.

Although Trump made a habit of referring to riot convicts as “J-6 patriots,” he said that if a case involved someone who was “mean and nasty” in his words, he would consider them differently.

It remains to be seen whether this will include the 18 people charged with seditious conspiracy or those who hit police with brass knuckles, bear spray, flag sticks or carried with knives, axes, swords or guns, in some cases.