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DEPT OF JUSTICE READS JANUARY 6TH PARDONS EXPANSIVELY

In further evidence that this is not your parents’ Dept of Justice, the DOJ last week began arguing in several pending cases that Trump’s clemency for January 6th rioters covers unrelated crimes that were discovered during FBI searches stemming from the attack on the Capitol.

Prosecutors moved to drop felon-in-possession charges against two former January 6th defendants, 18 USC § 922(g)(1) offenses that were based on guns found at the two men’s homes during the January 6th-related searches (although the guns themselves were not connected to the riot). The government argues that the gun offenses were covered by invoking Trump’s Day 1 executive order granting mass clemency to January 6th defendants because the searches that found the guns were “conduct related to” those events.

It works like this: Mike and Millie Maga were identified as being among the peaceful tourists who wandered around the Capitol on January 6, 2021, taking in the grandeur, chasing legislators, bear-spraying the gendarmes, and smearing their patriotic feces on the walls. A year or so later, jackbooted thugs from the FBI searched their home and found out that Mike – who had a couple of prior felonies on his record – had an AR-style rifle and a couple of Trump Glocks.

So Mike is quite properly charged with being a felon in possession of a gun under 18 USC §922(g)(1). Right?

“Not so fast,” the prosecutor says. President Trump’s “full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021…” includes a crime committed a year or so later, the government seems to be saying, as long as that later crime was only discovered because a search conducted for evidence of the January 6th offense.

Confusing? It was to U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Trump appointee who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Yesterday, she questioned DOJ attorney Jennifer Blackwell about the government’s shifting position on the application of Trump’s January 6th pardon.

The judge expressed frustration with the government’s changing position on the pardon’s scope, appearing skeptical of the DOJ’s newly developed argument that the January 6th pardon applied to the gun charges. She suggested that pardons “have a fixed meaning” on the day they are issued, a “clear definition of the pardon” that doesn’t evolve or change.

“The intent cannot evolve over time as new cases are brought to [Trump’s] attention,” Friedrich said, meaning that the president can’t change the intent he when he issued the pardon as he subsequently learns of new charges about which he was unaware when he signed the clemency.

The expansive reading of the pardon marks the latest push by the Administration to absolve January 6th defendants, whom Trump has described as political prisoners and victims of persecution.

In another case, a North Carolina defendant has pled not guilty to child pornography charges stemming from images found in the search of his residence as part of the January 6th investigation. NPR observed that in that case, “it’s unclear how broadly the Trump administration will interpret the pardons.”

Politico, Justice Department broadens Trump’s Jan 6 clemency as it moves to drop gun cases (February 22, 2025)

NPR, Justice Department broadens Jan. 6 pardons to cover gun, drug-related charges (February 20, 2025)

NBC, Federal judge grills Trump’s Justice Department over argument that Jan. 6 pardon covers a separate gun case (February 26, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root