The Justice Department says that President Trump’s clemency for Jan. 6, 2021, rioters covers unrelated crimes that were discovered during FBI searches stemming from the attack on the Capitol. Federal prosecutors stated the new legal position in court papers seeking to drop gun charges against two former Jan. 6 defendants. The guns in question were found at the two men’s homes during the Jan. 6 investigation, but the alleged gun crimes themselves were not connected to the riot. Nonetheless, prosecutors moved to dismiss the gun cases by invoking Trump’s Day 1 executive order granting mass clemency to Jan. 6 defendants, Politico reports. That order issued pardons to roughly 1,500 people who had been convicted of “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021. It also directed the attorney general to dismiss all pending prosecutions for “conduct related to” those events. The expansive reading of Trump’s clemency order marks the latest push by the new administration to absolve Jan. 6 defendants, whom Trump and his supporters have described as political prisoners and victims of persecution.
The two men whose charges are being dropped — Daniel Ball and Elias Costianes — both had been awaiting trial on Jan. 6-related charges when Trump took office. Ball faced charges of assault, while Costianes had misdemeanor charges. Those cases quickly disappeared as a result of Trump’s clemency. In separate proceedings, they also had both been accused of illegally possessing weapons that law enforcement officers discovered in Jan. 6-related searches. A day after Trump ordered Ball released from his Jan. 6 assault case, he was rearrested and returned to Florida where he was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Ball had prior felonies on his record from 2017 and 2021. In a court filing Thursday, federal prosecutors reversed course and asked that the felon-in-possession case be dropped, citing Trump’s executive order. Costianes pleaded guilty in 2023 to possessing a firearm while being a user of illegal drugs. He recently began serving his two-year prison sentence — a sentence that the Justice Department sought Wednesday to end immediately. “After consulting with the Department of Justice’s leadership, the United States has concluded that the President pardoned Mr. Costianes of the offenses in the indictment,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bornstein told a federal appeals court where Costianes was fighting for his release. “He should be immediately released from custody."
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