Trump's Jan. 6 pardons don't cover Capitol rioter who plotted to kill FBI agents, DOJ says

WASHINGTON — The sweeping pardons that President Donald Trump granted to Jan. 6 rioters in his first day back in office do not apply to a Capitol rioter who was separately convicted by a federal jury in Tennessee of plotting to murder FBI agents who investigated his actions at the Capitol, Justice Department prosecutors told a federal court Tuesday.

Edward Kelley was the fourth rioter to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was convicted of assaulting law enforcement and other charges after a trial in Washington last year in which the FBI alleged that he was armed with a handgun when he breached the Capitol. Kelley was then separately convicted by a federal jury in Tennessee of conspiracy to murder employees of the United States, solicitation to commit a crime of violence and influencing or retaliating against federal officials by threat.

Prosecutors wrote that Kelley "devised a plan to murder federal, state, and local law enforcement in East Tennessee."

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The Justice Department said evidence at trial showed Kelley developed a “kill list” of FBI special agents and others who investigated his conduct. “Every hit has to hurt,” Kelley said to a co-conspirator, according to DOJ. “Every hit has to hurt.”

Kelley was among the more than 1,500 defendants who were pardoned by Trump on Jan. 20 for their actions during the Capitol attack. Kelley was the fourth rioter to breach the Capitol, and then helped breach a fire escape door, allowing the mob to flood inside, according to prosecutors.

But Kelley’s attorney had argued that President Donald Trump’s mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters should apply to Kelley’s conviction in the murder plot because it “directly relates to the events at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

Federal prosecutors in Tennessee disagreed, writing in a court filing that they consulted with others at the Justice Department and that the “plain language of the presidential Proclamation [Kelley] cites forecloses the relief he seeks."

The prosecutors called the language of Trump’s proclamation — which granted pardons for defendants convicted of crimes related to events that happened at or near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — “unambiguous.”

“In his motion to dismiss his indictment and vacate his jury convictions in this case, the defendant contends that his 2022 conduct in East Tennessee is related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and therefore, covered by the Proclamation," federal prosecutors wrote. "The defendant is wrong.” 

The murder plot case "is not about January 6, 2021," they wrote, but "about the defendant’s entirely independent criminal conduct in Tennessee, in late 2022, more than 500 miles away from the Capitol: threatening, soliciting, and conspiring to murder agents, officers, and employees of the FBI, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Maryville Police Department, Blount County Sheriff’s Office, and Clinton Police Department.”

Kelley, prosecutors wrote, should be "sentenced as scheduled on May 7, 2025.”