Department of Justice attorneys have broadened President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons for Jan. 6 defendants to include certain crimes that did not occur at the U.S. Capitol, raising questions from at least one judge about the clemency’s shifting scope.
Judge Dabney Friedrich this week asked the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., which is currently being run on an interim basis by Trump-ally Ed Martin, to explain why it had a change of heart for one such defendant.
The defendant, Dan Wilson, was supposed to report back to prison on Saturday for illegal possession of multiple pistols and rifles, which police found in 2022 while executing a search warrant at Wilson’s home as part of a Jan. 6 investigation.
Wilson had been freed from prison because of Trump’s pardon, but DOJ attorney Jennifer Blackwell alerted the court on Feb. 6 that Wilson’s release was mistaken because the pardon “did not extend” to the firearms convictions.
Less than three weeks later, the DOJ reversed course. Blackwell said in court papers that the DOJ had “received further clarity on the intent of the Presidential Pardon” and that it should, in fact, apply to Wilson’s firearms convictions.
Wilson admitted in a plea agreement that his possession of the firearms was illegal because he had been convicted in the 1990s of multiple felonies, including burglary, and because one of the guns was not registered to him.
In response to the judge’s questions, Blackwell wrote that Trump’s pardon should now extend to charges that came about as a result of search warrants tied to Jan. 6. This was a “reasonable interpretation” of Trump’s clemency order, which freed defendants of charges ‘related to events that occurred at or near’ the Capitol,” Blackwell wrote.
Friedrich, a Trump appointee, had not responded to the DOJ’s request as of this publishing, but she paused Wilson’s obligation to report to the Bureau of Prisons on Saturday until the request is resolved.
Pardons apply to grenade possession but not child pornography
Defendant Jeremy Brown of Florida found himself in a similar situation.
When the FBI conducted a search warrant of his home in Tampa in 2021 in connection with Jan. 6, the agents discovered two military-grade grenades, an unregistered rifle, and an unregistered sawed-off shotgun. They also found that Brown improperly retained classified documents related to his time in the U.S. Special Forces. A jury convicted Brown of several charges related to these discoveries, including unlawful retention of classified information, unlawful possession and storage of explosives, and illegal gun possession.
A DOJ attorney in Florida wrote on Feb. 25 that Trump’s pardon extended to these convictions.
“Based on consultation with Department of Justice leadership, it is the position of the United States that the offenses of conviction in this case are intended to be covered by this Pardon,” attorney Daniel Marcet wrote.
Several other Jan. 6 defendants who were pardoned are still entangled in court proceedings related to other criminal allegations. One of them is David Daniel of North Carolina, who was indicted in October for producing and possessing child pornography, including of a minor under 12 years old.
Daniel pleaded guilty in January 2025 to pushing through police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and spraying an officer with a chemical irritant.
Friedrich, the D.C. judge who raised questions about the expanded scope of the pardons, asked Blackwell during a hearing this week, according to NBC News, why Trump’s pardon did not also extend to Daniel’s child pornography allegations. That indictment arose, after all, as a result of a search warrant tied to Jan. 6, the judge observed.
TRUMP ANNOUNCED MASS CLEMENCY FOR ALL JAN. 6 DEFENDANTS
Blackwell said that because there was some preexisting information about the child pornography allegations before the search warrant was executed, the pardon did not apply.
“That’s an interesting line to draw,” Friedrich responded.