Trump issues two pardons related to investigation into January 6, 2021 riot

Suzanne Ellen Kaye was convicted for threatening to shoot FBI agents, and Daniel Edwin Wilson for conspiring to impede or injure police offers and illegal firearm possession.

United States President Donald Trump has issued two new pardons related to the investigation into the January 6, 2021 US Capitol insurrection.

White House officials said on Saturday that one pardon was given to a woman convicted of threatening to shoot FBI agents who were investigating a tip that she may have been at the US Capitol. Trump issued the second pardon for a defendant who had remained behind bars despite the sweeping grant of clemency for Capitol rioters because of a separate conviction for illegally possessing firearms.

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These pardons are the latest example of Trump’s willingness to use his constitutional authority to help supporters who were scrutinised as part of the massive January 6 investigation that was conducted by the administration of former US President Joe Biden and that led to charges against more than 1,500 defendants.

With a stroke of his pen and within hours of being sworn in for his second term in January of this year, Trump upended the largest prosecution in the history of the US Department of Justice.

He freed from prison people caught on camera viciously attacking police as well as leaders of far-right groups convicted of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Suzanne Ellen Kaye, of Florida, was released last year after serving an 18-month sentence. After the FBI contacted her in 2021 about a tip indicating she may have been at the Capitol on January 6, she posted a video on social media citing her right under the US Constitution’s Second Amendment to carry a gun, and threatened to shoot agents if they came to her house.

Kaye testified at trial that she didn’t own any guns and didn’t intend to threaten the FBI, according to court papers. She told authorities she was not at the Capitol on January 6 and wasn’t charged with any Capitol riot-related crimes.

Trump also pardoned Daniel Edwin Wilson of Kentucky, who was under investigation for his role in the riot when authorities found six guns and roughly 4,800 rounds of ammunition in his home.

Wilson, who had been scheduled to remain in prison until 2028, was released Friday evening following the pardon, his lawyer said on Saturday.

A White House official said on Saturday that “because the search of Mr. Wilson’s home was due to the events of January 6, and they should have never been there in the first place, President Trump is pardoning Mr. Wilson for the firearm issues”.

Wilson had been sentenced in 2024 to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to impede or injure police officers and illegally possessing firearms at his home.

Trump has said he would likely sue the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) next week for as much as $5bn after the British media company admitted it wrongly edited a video of a January 6, 2021 speech he gave, but insisted there was no legal basis for his claim.

The controversy centres on the BBC’s edit of Trump’s remarks on the day his supporters stormed the US Capitol.