President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardon of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot does not extend to the separate crimes of one rioter who plotted to murder the law enforcement agents who investigated him, the court ruled Monday.
Edward Kelley, who was convicted on Jan. 6 charges after the government presented extensive evidence showing he was the fourth rioter to breach the Capitol after assaulting law enforcement, was pardoned by the president along with more than 1,500 others.
But Kelley had separately been charged with plotting to murder law enforcement officers involved in the investigation in a separate case. Kelley was convicted on those charges by a federal jury in Tennessee in November, and he is set to be sentenced on May 7.
The Justice Department has flip-flopped on the extent of the Jan. 6 pardon in other cases involving guns found in the homes of Capitol rioters, arguing that the president's action should give defendants a clean slate on other crimes or charges discovered in the course of Jan. 6 investigations.
The Eastern District of Tennessee judge appointed by former President George W. Bush, ruled Monday that Trump's Jan. 6 pardon does not apply.
Late last month, a federal judge in Washington grilled an assistant U.S. attorney about the new contention that Trump's pardon covered charges related to guns found when federal agents searched Jan. 6 defendant Dan Wilson's home in 2023. The judge, a Trump appointee, has yet to rule in that case, but said in court that pardons "have to have a fixed meaning" which "cannot evolve over time as new cases are brought to his attention."