A federal judge has denied the Justice Department’s attempt to apply President Donald Trump’s blanket pardon for members of the Jan. 6 mob at the Capitol to one defendant’s conviction for possessing illegal guns hundreds of miles away, at his Kentucky home.
In a ruling Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, became the first judge to reject outright the Justice Department’s recently adopted position about the scope of Trump’s clemency.
Reversing its initial stance in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration, the department is now arguing that Trump’s pardon extends to crimes with no connection to the attack on the Capitol other than the fact that law enforcement agents uncovered evidence of them during the Jan. 6 investigation.
Friedrich said DOJ’s position “contradicts” the “clear and unambiguous” language of Trump’s Day 1 executive order granting pardons to about 1,500 people convicted of participating in the riot.
Friedrich noted that Trump’s order said it applied to “individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” The judge found illogical the contention that the order extended to other crimes authorities came across as they conducted that investigation.
“To interpret the Presidential Pardon to apply to any type of offense — no matter when or where that offense was committed — simply because evidence of that offense was uncovered incident to a January 6-related search warrant would ‘defy rationality,’” Friedrich wrote, quoting an earlier court precedent.
Trump could clarify or expand his Jan. 6 pardon directive at any time, but he has not done so, perhaps because that could draw more attention to the subject and to other crimes committed by some involved in the Capitol riot. So far, the Justice Department has also declined to offer any sworn declaration or other evidence about what Trump intended in his order.
Friedrich ordered defendant Dan Wilson, whom she absolved of his Jan. 6 charges, to report to prison on his unrelated gun conviction. Friedrich previously sentenced him to five years in prison. In an order Thursday, she also granted Wilson the right to immediately appeal her ruling on the pardon to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the weeks after Trump’s Inauguration Day pardon — which erased the convictions of more than 1,000 people who joined the Capitol mob and ordered the Justice Department to dismiss pending cases against hundreds more — prosecutors forcefully rebuffed defendants who claimed the clemency should apply to their unrelated charges.
However, advocates for Jan. 6 convicts pushed back, mounting an assertive campaign to pressure prosecutors to take an expansive view of Trump’s pardon.
In recent weeks, DOJ reversed itself, claiming consultation with department leaders and new “clarity” led it to the belief that Trump wanted to pardon unrelated offenses uncovered when the FBI searched homes during the Jan. 6 investigation. Among the charges they say should now be dropped: Florida defendant Jeremy Brown’s conviction for possessing grenades and classified information; California defendant Ben Martin’s conviction for possessing a firearm despite a history of domestic violence; and Maryland defendant Elias Costianes’ conviction for illegally possessing firearms.
Friedrich was the first judge to express doubt about the Justice Department’s new interpretation, suggesting at a hearing last month that she agreed with the government’s initial position of the pardon’s limited scope. Since then, three federal appeals court panels have pushed back or questioned prosecutors about DOJ’s changing position.
A federal judge in Tennessee rejected one defendant’s effort to extend the pardon to a conviction for conspiring to kill his FBI investigators. In that case, the Justice Department successfully opposed reading the pardon to cover defendant Ed Kelley’s unrelated charge.
Friedrich was particularly perplexed about how prosecutors determined which unrelated charges were covered by the pardon and which weren’t, saying the Justice Department’s attempt to explain it was not “cogent.” She noted that the department similarly argued that a defendant facing a child pornography possession charge in North Carolina was also not included in Trump’s clemency, even though the materials were discovered during a search related to the Jan. 6 investigation.
