In the past few weeks, the Justice Department under President Trump has taken an expansive view of the pardons he issued to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Department officials, after initially concluding that the pardons covered only crimes that were committed at the Capitol on the day of the attack, have now decided that Mr. Trump’s mercy should also extend to other offenses — like possessing illegal firearms — that were uncovered later and in different places as federal agents investigated suspects for their roles in the events of Jan. 6.
On Thursday evening, however, a federal judge in Washington issued an order strongly pushing back on the Justice Department’s broader interpretation of Mr. Trump’s clemency decree.
The judge, Dabney L. Friedrich, said the pardons should cover only crimes that were directly related to the Capitol attack and chided the department for the way it had “abruptly reversed its position” on the issue “with virtually no explanation.”
“President Trump alone has the constitutional authority to pardon,” Judge Friedrich wrote. “He still may do so. But this court cannot — it is duty bound to enforce the presidential pardon as written.”
Judge Friedrich’s order was the latest effort by the federal bench in Washington to criticize the Justice Department for how it has handled Mr. Trump’s sweeping reprieves. In January, days after the pardons were issued, several of the judge’s colleagues handed down fiery decisions, saying that while Mr. Trump’s decree was legally viable, it could not erase what happened on the ground on Jan. 6.
“It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake,” wrote one of the judges, Tanya S. Chutkan. “And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”
The decision by Judge Friedrich, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, came in the case of Daniel Edwin Wilson, a Kentucky-based militiaman who pleaded guilty last spring to charges of conspiring to impede or injure officers at the Capitol. As part of his plea, Mr. Wilson also admitted to possessing illegal weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, which were discovered during a search of his home as he was being investigated in connection with Jan. 6.
Early last month, Ed Martin, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, rejected the idea — raised by Mr. Wilson’s lawyers — that the weapons offenses were covered by the president’s clemency grant. But Mr. Martin suddenly changed course two weeks later, writing in a court filing that he had “received further clarity on the intent of the presidential pardon” and saying that it did in fact cover Mr. Wilson’s gun charges.
The immediate effect of Judge Friedrich’s order on Thursday was narrow: Mr. Wilson will have to report to prison to serve a portion of the five-year term he received for both the gun offenses and the Jan. 6-related charges.
But the decision also stood as a rebuke of the Justice Department, which, as Judge Friedrich wrote, “appears to be shifting positions, making decisions about the scope of the pardon, as it sees fit.”
Mr. Trump’s clemency proclamation says that anyone charged with or convicted of “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” should either receive a pardon or have their case dismissed.
But as Judge Friedrich pointed out, a strict reading of the text of the decree would not cover Mr. Wilson’s firearms offenses, which occurred on a different date — June 3, 2022 — and in a different place — the Western District of Kentucky.
Moreover, she wrote, prosecutors have not been consistent even in their broad interpretation of the clemency decree.
In cases where an investigation of a Jan. 6 defendant has led to the discovery of other offenses involving the illegal possession of firearms or classified materials, the prosecutors have said those crimes are covered by the pardons.
But they have also said that the pardons do not extend to cases where agents discovered child pornography while searching the homes of people involved in Jan. 6.
In her order, Judge Friedrich expressed frustration with the shift in stances, saying that the Justice Department had displayed “inconsistent litigating positions” and seemed unwilling or unable “to express a clear and stable interpretation of the pardon.”
