More Than a Fifth of Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Have Been Arrested Again

Mere hours after his inauguration, Donald Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 individuals who faced criminal charges for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in support of his claims that the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen.”

Dozens of those pardon recipients have since been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of other crimes, according to a new analysis by Lawfare. At least 97 January 6ers—or roughly one in 16—have been tied to a crime since the president gave them unilateral forgiveness.

The crimes they stand accused of range from petty crimes such as property damage, trespassing, and possession of drug paraphernalia, to serious felonies such as stalking, theft, defrauding government agencies, plots to assassinate law enforcement and government officials, and homicide.

At least 14 pardon recipients have since been charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child porn, according to Lawfare. Another six have faced domestic violence charges. Others have been accused of different violent crimes, such as physical assault or illegal firearms possession. At least 20 have been charged for driving while drunk or public intoxication.

Notably, five individuals that Trump granted clemency have been charged with or accused of crimes that they conducted after the pardon, suggesting that the president actually facilitated more crime by prematurely kneecapping their judicial consequences.

They include Andrew Paul Johnson, who went on to commit multiple sex crimes against children months after Trump freed him from the clink. He was sentenced in March to life in prison for the crimes related to transmitting child porn and molesting a child under the age of 12.

Ryan Nichols is another pardon recipient who went on to commit more crime. Nichols was charged on May 10 after he allegedly threatened a person with a gun in a church parking lot.

Trump praised his pardon recipients as recently as Wednesday while defending his $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” referring to the honeypot’s potential awardees as “great people.”

“These are people who have lost their lives over nonsense,” Trump told the New York Post. “These were many great people, and I gave them pardons and I’m very proud to have given them pardons. And I think they should be reimbursed for a crooked government.”

It’s unclear if the slush fund will proceed, but a slew of January 6ers have already lined up for their slice of the pie. They include former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, a sex offender who bear-sprayed cops, and a convicted child molester who told his victims he would give them money from a Trump payout in exchange for their silence.

Arizona’s attorney general is still going to pursue charges against President Trump’s allies for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

Kris Mayes plans to seek a new indictment against those allies, her office announced Thursday, following the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday not to reverse a lower court ruling throwing out earlier indictments against the group of 18 people, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“The Arizona Attorney General’s Office will return this case to the grand jury,” a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, Richie Taylor, said to Politico. “We decline to comment further at this time.”

Two years ago, a grand jury indicted Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, conservative attorney John Eastman, and 15 others over a fake elector scheme to reverse Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Last year, though, the case was thrown out by Judge Sam Myers, who said prosecutors didn’t show jurors the text of the Electoral Count Act, which governs presidential elections.

Mayes’s office appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court, which decided not to reopen the case on Tuesday. If Mayes secures new indictments, Arizona would join Wisconsin and Nevada as states with active criminal cases against 2020 fake elector schemes. Even if Trump won’t face prosecution for interfering in the 2020 election, the possibility remains open that his close allies could still face criminal consequences.

The Trump administration is denying reports of incoming oil price spikes, even as the White House has been warned by multiple executives in the region.

Politico reported that one anonymous executive told the administration that their storage tanks were “at dangerously low levels already,” three months into Iran’s retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have shared those concerns at the highest levels of government about what’s coming in mid-to-late June,” they said. “I hope they are paying attention to inventories right now. You’re hitting tank bottom.”

In all, four executives told Politico that insiders have warned the Trump administration that a major price spike could hit consumers as soon as mid-June.

A White House staffer completely dismissed this reporting, saying that “Politico’s anonymous sources are wrong.” And an official at the Department of Energy claimed there were “no such discussions” around inventory.

Yet Politico’s anonymous sources don’t sound too far off from what’s publicly known. Last week, Exxon senior vice president Neil Chapman told a room full of investors that the U.S. is “approaching unheard of inventory levels. I mean, really, really low levels. You can debate whether that’s going to hit those really low levels in two weeks or three weeks. But once you get to that point, then you’ll see price shoot up.” Another anonymous source told Politico that this point of view had already been expressed to the White House, but to no avail.

“President Trump and his energy team anticipated short-term market disruptions, communicated them openly to the American people, and implemented an aggressive plan to mitigate any impacts,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to Politico. “President Trump will never allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon, and he will continue to advance America’s core national security interests.”

Senate Republicans killed a Democratic attempt to end President Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” Thursday.

The Senate voted 50–49 against sending the spending bill back to the Judiciary Committee in order to attach language ending the fund.

Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio, and Dan Sullivan of Alaska were the only three Republicans to vote with Democrats for codifying the ban.

The Trump administration has given mixed signals as to the fate of the $1.776 billion fund after a federal court temporarily struck it down last week. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a congressional committee Tuesday that the fund was dead, but Trump said otherwise in his interview with the New York Post podcast Pod Force One published on Wednesday.

At least one UFC fighter believes that the Trump administration is “desecrating” the federal government’s role by bringing the games to the White House lawn.

Professional fighter Bryce Mitchell told reporters Wednesday night that the government should not be involved in hosting sporting events, and that the June 14 UFC match—an “America 250” event coincidentally scheduled on Donald Trump’s birthday—is only opening up the federal government to more corruption.

“What I think, personally, is that our government is desecrating its role in society by entertaining sports,” Mitchell said, citing his degree in economics and his love for political science. “Our government is to protect and serve the people, and really should be as minimal as possible.

“When you’re doing all of this stuff, hosting sporting events, it’s really outside of the goal of what the government was intended to be because our tax dollars and resources are funding this operation,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell is not one of the fighters on the June 14 card. He specified that while he would love to participate—and would be ready and willing to fill in for any absentees—he does not politically believe that the government should be veering into the sporting world.

“For the UFC, I think it’s great,” Mitchell said. “Of course they’re going to say yes to it.”

The 31-year-old MMA artist noted that while he’s not criticizing the UFC’s participation, emphasizing that he’s “happy” for all the fighters who are getting a moment in the limelight with the major event, “the government should never be hosting sporting events because there’s more room for corruption, and we already have a corrupted government.”

“The government is supposed to protect us, not entertain us,” Mitchell emphasized.

Trump is a lifelong fan of boxing and MMA, and has apparently used the nation’s semiquincentennial anniversary as an excuse to host a fight at the executive mansion. The tournament will be the first UFC event ever hosted at the White House.

The main card will pit Justin Gaethje against Ilia Topuria for the lightweight title, and Alex Pereira against Ciryl Gane for the interim heavyweight title. UFC’s parent company, TKO Holdings, has promised that the entire event—which is expected to cost around $60 million—will be funded entirely by the sports organization and come at no cost to taxpayers.

Trump has already made a buck off the match: The president reportedly invested up to $50,000 in TKO Group Holdings on March 25, according to his May 12 financial disclosure filing, two weeks after the tournament was formally announced.