Another Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump will plead guilty in a separate case involving child exploitation of multiple victims, according to federal court records.
David Daniel has reached a plea agreement in connection with a pending charge of sexual exploitation of a minor and possessing sexually explicit images of children in federal court in the Western District of North Carolina.
According to court documents Daniel’s lawyer signed Tuesday, in 2015 and 2016 Daniel enticed a minor under age 12 “to engage in sexually explicit conduct” for the purpose of producing “a visual depiction” of the conduct.
The details of Daniel's case emerged in part as investigators probed his involvement in the Capitol attack. Prosecutors said he persuaded another minor victim to engage in “sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing” a visual depiction of the conduct, authorities said. That victim was under 18.
It's not clear yet when he might be sentenced.
Last year, just before Trump returned to office and gave mass clemency to Jan. 6 defendants, including Daniel, Daniel admitted that he assaulted law enforcement during the Capitol breach. Daniel had been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack in November 2023.
Other pardoned Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted in other criminal cases, including child sexual abuse cases. Daniel Tocci was sentenced to four years in prison in March. Andrew Paul Johnson was sentenced to life in prison in March after he was convicted of child sex crimes. Florida prosecutors said Johnson tried to silence one of his victims with the promise of money from a Jan. 6 settlement he expected to receive from the Trump administration; the administration has not committed to make such agreements yet.
In Daniel’s case, U.S. District Judge Matthew Orso ruled in January that "child exploitation is not 'conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,’” and that the pardon’s "plain language does not apply to the indictment in this case.”
An attorney for Daniel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In February 2025, a judge in a gun case against another rioter, Dan Wilson, highlighted Daniel's prosecution when he asked a Justice Department attorney how the Trump administration was drawing the line on pardons. The Trump administration decided to treat guns seized during Jan. 6 raids differently from child sexual abuse material it uncovered during the investigations.
Trump eventually issued a separate pardon in Wilson's case, granting him clemency for his gun offense in addition to his Jan. 6 conduct.
Attorneys for Brian Cole Jr., who is accused of planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committees on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack, have argued that Trump's pardon applies to his conduct.
Federal prosecutors said Friday that Trump's pardon did not apply to Cole's conduct.
