Donald Trump's Jan. 6 pardons cast a long shadow over justice six months later
On this, the six-month anniversary of President Donald Trump's sweeping pardons for more than 1,500 people accused or convicted of invading and ransacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, let's check in on some of the people arrested for that riot and how the president's team is rewriting history to make the FBI and Department of Justice the bad guys.
People Trump pardoned for Jan. 6 crimes have since been arrested for soliciting a minor for sex, for commercial burglary and for home invasion.
And the FBI agents and federal prosecutors who worked on those Jan. 6 cases have been demonized by Trump as his administration ends their careers for the offense of doing their jobs.
One J6er tried to use Trump's pardon to beat child porn charges
Kyle Travis Colton, a California man arrested and accused in December 2023 for using a flagpole to assault a police officer at the Capitol on Jan. 6, pleaded guilty in October 2024. Trump pardoned him three and a half months later. But Colton had more trouble with the law.
An FBI search when he was arrested found Colton's computer held "copious images and videos depicting graphic sexual abuse of young children." Colton's attorney argued that Trump's pardon applied to his child porn, too, because it was discovered as part of the Jan. 6 investigation.
A federal judge didn't buy that, and a jury in California convicted Colton on July 15. He faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison when sentenced on Oct. 27.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a good government nonprofit known as CREW, tracks pardoned insurrectionists accused of other crimes before or after the Jan. 6 riot.
Matthew Huttle, an Indiana man sentenced to six months in prison for crimes he committed on Jan. 6, pulled a gun and struggled with a sheriff's deputy during a traffic stop six days after Trump pardoned him. The deputy shot and killed him.
Edward Kelley of Tennessee was convicted in November 2024 for assaulting police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump pardoned him before he was sentenced. But Kelley was also convicted in November 2024 on charges that he conspired to kill the FBI agents who investigated him. His lawyers had argued that Trump's pardon should also apply to the murder plot. He was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.
What's the messaging on election results going forward?
Noah Bookbinder, CREW's president, told me he expects more people pardoned for Jan. 6 crimes will be re-arrested. And he worries that federal investigators and prosecutors now know they face retaliation if their work runs counter to what Trump wants.
"These are people who showed their lawlessness and who feel empowered," Bookbinder said. "And so there's a very specific danger there, on the flip side of that, at the Department of Justice, that attorneys who work at the department and agents who work at the FBI feel very uncertain in their roles, uncertain that they can do their jobs without facing consequences if the president and the administration see anything that these Justice Department personnel do as adverse to their interests."
The Jan. 6 insurrection was a failed bid to overturn the free and fair 2020 election, egged on by Trump, who continues to routinely lie about how American elections are run. So what happens if Trump doesn't like the results of next year's midterm elections, when control of Congress is up for grabs?
"I think we have to assume, going forward, that a lot of people in this country are going to feel like they don't have to accept the results of elections if they don't like those results, particularly if those results are seen as going against Donald Trump," Bookbinder said, "and that using force to get to the election results they want is OK and is even encouraged."
Republicans have made it clear they want to target law enforcement
Just look at the DOJ team Trump has assembled and ask yourself if they prioritize justice or pleasing the president.
Emil Bove, a senior DOJ official who privately represented Trump when he was convicted of 34 felonies in a 2024 business fraud criminal case, saw his appointment for a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court advance on a party-line vote in a Senate committee on July 17.
This happened despite a letter sent to the Senate from more than 900 former DOJ employees, accusing Bove of being a "leader in the assault" on the careers of prosecutors and FBI agents who did their jobs investigating Jan. 6 to hold rioters accountable.
Trump, who sparked the Jan. 6 riot, campaigned on retribution. Bove is his retribution delivery boy.
The DOJ alumni noted Bove's "breathtaking act of hypocrisy," since he had previously overseen parts of the Jan. 6 investigation as an assistant U.S. Attorney in New York before pivoting to target his colleagues for the same thing.
Then there's Jared Wise, a former FBI supervisory special agent from Oregon who was accused of rooting for rioters to attack police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was indicted for that in May 2023. He was standing trial on Jan. 20 when Trump was sworn in for a second term and included Wise in his sweeping pardons. The DOJ dropped his case that day.
Wise got more than a reprieve from responsibility. Trump gave him a job. At the DOJ. In the so-called "Weaponization Working Group," which grew out of Trump's Jan. 20 executive order – the same day Wise got his pardon – which whined that the DOJ had "ruthlessly prosecuted more than 1,500 individuals" for crimes committed on Jan. 6.
Read between the lines, and what you really see is that Trump knew Jan. 6 was a stain on our democracy and was directly his fault. So he wants to rewrite that history, to make himself the victim of the calamity he caused. And he's building a team to do just that.
So the next time a MAGA crowd decides to storm a government building, beating police officers, smashing windows, stealing computers and smearing their feces on the walls, ask yourself if Team Trumpers like Wise will root for rioters while searching for ways to blame Trump's perceived enemies.
Will Bove, if a full Senate vote gives him a lifetime federal judgeship, consider cases according to the strictures of the U.S. Constitution – or just focus on whatever result Trump wants?
Trump has twisted and transformed the Republican Party in many ways. The GOP used to tout "law and order" as a bedrock of democracy. Justice is now a team sport, where accountability for action can be canceled with adulation for authority.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
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