Judge criticizes Justice Department's broad reading of Trump's Capitol riot pardons

Audio By Carbonatix

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday criticized the Justice Department's evolving position that a presidential pardon for a Kentucky man who stormed the Capitol also covers his conviction for illegally possessing guns at his home.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich pressed a prosecutor to explain why the department abandoned its initial conclusion that Daniel Edwin Wilson must report back to prison because it didn't believe that his pardon for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot extended to his firearms convictions.

“The meaning of the pardon can’t be shifting from day to day,” the judge said.

Friedrich said it was “extraordinary” for the Justice Department to declare that President Donald Trump's blanket pardons for Capitol rioters apply to crimes related to illegal “contraband” found by investigators during searches related to the Jan. 6 cases.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Blackwell said Justice Department officials recently provided “further clarity” that Trump intended for Wilson’s pardon to cover his firearms convictions.

“I think it’s fair to say our understanding of the intent has evolved over time,” Blackwell said.

Investigators seized six guns and roughly 4,800 rounds of ammunition when they searched Wilson’s home in June 2022. He had prior felony convictions that made it illegal for him to possess firearms.

Friedrich sentenced Wilson last August to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to impede or injure police officers at the Capitol and illegally possessing an unregistered firearm.

The federal Bureau of Prisons erroneously released Wilson from custody after Trump issued the pardons on Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House.

Wilson is scheduled to report back to prison on Thursday, but the judge signaled that his reporting date would be delayed while she weighs a ruling.

Wilson's attorney, George Pallas, argued that the judge doesn't have the authority to interpret the scope of the pardons. He said Blackwell essentially spoke for Trump at the hearing.

“She's telling you what the president means by this pardon.” Pallas told the judge. “It's not subject to interpretation.”

Friedrich said she doesn't question that Trump had the authority to pardon Wilson and approximately 1,400 other Capitol riot defendants.

“I'm accepting the language of the pardon,” she said. “The question is: How far afield from the language can it go?”

The judge asked why Trump hasn’t issued a “clarifying” pardon. It can't be an “open pardon” that is subject to reinterpretation over time, she added.

“It can't be completely divorced from the text," Friedrich said. “It can't be, ‘We know it when we see it.’”

The Justice Department concluded that Trump's pardon for another Capitol riot defendant, Jeremy Brown, also applies to his separate convictions for illegally possessing stolen grenades and classified information. Brown was sentenced in April 2023 to seven years and three months in prison after a federal jury in Florida convicted him.

But the department decided that the pardons don’t cover all the charges against at least two other Jan. 6 defendants.

Prosecutors moved to dismiss the Jan. 6 case against Taylor Taranto, but they have continued to prosecute him for charges stemming from his arrest in June 2023 near former President Barack Obama’s Washington home.

The department also concluded the pardon doesn’t apply in the case of a man who was awaiting trial on Jan. 6 charges when prosecutors say he developed a plan to kill law enforcement. Edward Kelley was convicted in November of charges including conspiracy to murder federal employees and is sentenced to be scheduled in May.

___