The man Donald Trump appointed to review pardon requests at the Department of Justice is already reviewing full clemency for Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia group who was convicted of treason-related charges in connection with the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.
Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin recently met with lawyer Peter Ticktin, who delivered 11 pardon applications — including one for Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in prison in connection with the Capitol assault.
Hours after taking office, Trump commuted his sentence, along with the sentences of 13 other Capitol rioters, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys members who were similarly convicted. Rhodes was released from prison hours later.
Ticktin also presented pardon applications Oath Keepers members and associates David Moerschel, Don Wilson and Kelly Meggs, as well Dominic Pezzola, Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zach Rehl, members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys gang.
He also presented applications for Elias Costianes and Ben Martin, who were also convicted in January 6 cases.
Ticktin also presented an application for former Arkansas State Senator Jonathan Woods, who was charged in a bribery scheme and sentenced to more than 18 years in prison after he “was wrongfully convicted, over sentenced, and mistreated leading to two open heart surgeries,” Ticktin told The Independent.
Martin, a prominent “Stop the Steal” activist who defended Jan. 6 defendants, was briefly Trump’s top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., tasked with running the office that handled those prosecutions. Trump recently withdrew his name for consideration for the role and instead installed him as the pardon chief and head of the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group.”
According to Politico, the renewed effort to fully pardon Rhodes and other Jan. 6 offenders was arranged by Ticktin and Treniss Evans, who help run the right-wing nonprofit legal group American Rights Alliance.
“I listened! Cuz he’s wise,” Martin said about the meeting.
The Independent has requested comment from the White House.
A fresh round of pardon requests from defendants charged with the most serious crimes surrounding the attack will now head to White House pardon czar Alice Johnson.
Trump is meanwhile expected to issue pardons for reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud and sentenced to several years in prison.
The president also recently pardoned Paul Walczak, who pleaded guilty to tax crimes. The pardon was issued one month after Walczak’s mother attended a Mar-a-Lago fundraising dinner charging $1 million per person.
The president has pardoned nearly 1,600 defendants charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol.
Rhodes founded his far-right anti-government militia group in 2009 and claimed thousands of members across the country, including current and former service members and law enforcement officers, preparing for armed civil war in defense of what they perceive as threats to the Constitution.
Rhodes and his allies spent weeks discussing a violent response to the 2020 election on encrypted messaging apps, then organized a weapons and supply cache at a nearby hotel before joining the mob.
After several members breached the Capitol, shouting “this is our f*****g house” and “we took the f*****g Capitol,” Rhodes hailed them as “patriots.” He told an ally that his only regret that day was that the group wasn’t armed. Rhodes did not enter the building.
Days after Jan. 6, Rhodes typed a message intended for then-President Trump, calling on him to “save the republic” or “die in prison.”
That message was ultimately never delivered, but it echoed another message published on the Oath Keepers website weeks earlier, urging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and deputize Rhodes and the Oath Keepers to take up arms.
“It’s better to wage it with you as Commander-in-Chief than to have you comply with a fraudulent election, leave office, and leave the White House in the hands of illegitimate usurpers and Chinese puppets,” Rhodes wrote at the time.
He followed up with another message demanding that Trump deliver a “crushing blow” to his enemies “while they sleep, wrapped in their arrogance.”
Rhodes also instructed his allies to “get gear squared away and ready to fight,” adding that “Trump has one last chance right now to stand but he will need us and our rifles too.”
More than 1,000 Jan. 6 defendants pleaded guilty. More than 200 people were found guilty at trial — including 10 defendants like Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Judges who presided over Jan. 6 cases have barely hidden their contempt for Trump’s sweeping pardons for virtually every member of the mob — and have issued stark warnings against attempts to rewrite the history of the attack.
Last year, the federal judge who presided over Rhodes’s case said the prospect of a pardon for his crimes “is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country.”
“You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and its democracy and the very fabric of this country,” District Judge Amit Mehta told Rhodes during his sentencing hearing in 2023. “You are smart, you are compelling, and you are charismatic. Frankly, that is what makes you dangerous.”
District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Trump’s federal election interference case, wrote that Trump’s pardons “cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake.”
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