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Judge disqualifies herself from Capitol rioter’s pardon case

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:59:54 +0000

Left: U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston (Eastern District of California). Right: Benjamin Martin (DOJ).

A federal judge in California has withdrawn from the case of a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter after the Trump administration notified the court that it supported the defendant’s motion to be released from prison as he appeals separate felony gun charges on the theory that his pardon absolved him of those crimes as well.

While it was not immediately clear if the judge resigned in protest, it would be the result of the Justice Department’s new position that President Donald Trump’s sweeping grant of pardons for those convicted of attacking the Capitol extends to a variety of crimes unrelated to Jan. 6.

“Good cause appearing, the assigned District Judge disqualifies herself from all proceedings in the present action,” U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston wrote in a self-signed order filed Wednesday. “The Clerk of the Court SHALL reassign this action to the docket.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley stepped in later that day and signed the document granting the release of 46-year-old Benjamin Martin.

Martin, who has multiple previous convictions for domestic violence, was found guilty in November 2024 of possessing an illegal weapons cache that included an AR‑style rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition. His conviction came after a one-day trial before Thurston, who subsequently ordered Martin to serve three years and two months in federal prison.

Martin in June 2024 was convicted for his role in the Capitol riot, where he confronted cops at a set of doors to the U.S. Capitol building and got sprayed by mace.

The weapons case came to light in September 2021 when the FBI executed a search warrant at his residence in Madera in connection with the Jan. 6 breach.

During the search, agents seized eight firearms, including an AR‑15‑style rifle, multiple high-capacity magazines for the AR-15, and more than 500 rounds of ammunition, which he had been prohibited from possessing because of a prior domestic violence conviction, authorities said. He had choked his then-girlfriend and dragged her back into the house after she tried to flee, officials said.

Shortly after his arrest, Martin was caught on a recorded jail call where he instructed his current fiancee to lie to authorities and tell them that the firearms seized from his residence belonged to her and her father and that he did not know about them. Martin received an enhancement to his sentence for witness tampering, officials said.

After Trump issued about 1,500 blanket pardons for the rioters, Martin argued on appeal that the president meant to absolve him of the gun charges as well. He reasoned that because the search warrant stemmed from his actions during the Capitol attack, any evidence obtained through that search was sufficiently “related to” the events of Jan. 6.

At first, the DOJ vehemently rejected the notion that Martin’s California weapons cache was covered by the president’s pardon.

“Martin’s pardon for January 6, 2021 offenses he committed in Washington, D.C., does not reach his separate firearms offense he committed in California at a different time. The plain language of the pardon says it ‘applies only to convictions for offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,”” the DOJ wrote in court filings on Feb. 14, opposing Martin’s release pending appeal. “Martin’s instant conviction is not punishment for his conduct on January 6, 2021, nor was the search of his residence a consequence of his conviction. Martin’s argument conflates the investigation that discovered his instant offense conduct with the offense itself, contrary to the plain language of the pardon.”

But in the days that followed, federal prosecutors reversed course and began arguing that Trump’s pardons covered related weapons offenses.

For example, prosecutors last week asked a federal judge to drop weapons charges against convicted Capitol rioter Daniel Wilson. After initially claiming Wilson was erroneously released from prison after receiving his pardon, the DOJ last week said new directives indicated that Trump meant for Wilson to be set free.

“In the intervening period since the government filed its response, the government has received further clarity on the intent of the pardon,” prosecutors wrote last week. “Under these circumstances, the Presidential Pardon includes a pardon for the firearm convictions to which the defendant pled, similar to other defendants in which the government has made comparable motions.”

Less than two weeks after opposing Martin’s assertion that his weapons convictions were covered by the pardon, the DOJ filed court documents requesting that he be released from custody while his appeal plays out.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday remanded Martin’s case back to the district court to “set appropriate conditions of release” while keeping the existing briefing schedule.

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Jason Kandel and Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.

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Accused Jan. 6 rioters must still face wrongful death suit

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 21:30:55 +0000

Background: Taylor Taranto and Dr. David Walls-Kaufman inside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack (Department of Justice). Left inset: Capitol Police Officer Jeffrey Smith (Jack Reznicki). Right inset: Donald Trump speaks after meeting with members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at their headquarters on Jan. 31, 2024, in Washington (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik).

President Donald Trump may have criminally absolved Jan. 6 participants through pardons, commutations and dismissals this week, but that doesn’t erase the civil lawsuits that are currently pending against several rioters.

Defendants Taylor Taranto and Dr. David Walls-Kaufman, for instance, of Washington state, are both still facing wrongful death lawsuits for attacking a Capitol Police officer who shot and killed himself after suffering from “severe depression” and a “brain injury” caused by a concussion he allegedly sustained at their hands.

As first noted by the Tri-City Herald, Trump’s pardon does not dismiss the civil lawsuit filed by Erin Smith, the widow of Jeffrey Smith, who died by suicide on Jan. 15 just nine days after he was allegedly attacked during the Capitol riot by Taranto and Walls-Kaufman. Court filings viewed by Law&Crime on Thursday confirm the case is still active.

Jeffrey Smith used his service weapon to take his life while on the way to work, his wife says.

During the Jan. 6 riot, Jeffrey Smith was allegedly struck in the face by a metal tactical “cane” that Walls-Kaufman — a D.C. chiropractor — was wielding that day. Taranto is accused of giving him the cane.

“Kaufman was part of the insurrectionist mob inside the US Capitol and was being escorted out of the building by MPD officers,” the wrongful death suit says. “Co-Defendant Taranto handed a cane or crowbar (or similar object) to Kaufman. Kaufman, in turn, violently swung the cane and struck Officer Smith in the face/head.”

Erin Smith’s filing describes the attack as a violent crime of opportunity, with her husband being “in a particularly vulnerable situation because his face shield was up — “leaving his face and eyes exposed,” the lawsuit says.

“It appears that Kaufman and Taranto specifically and maliciously targeted Officer Smith because his visor was in the upright position, making him vulnerable to this brutal and vicious attack,” the suit charges.

Taranto, a U.S. Navy veteran, was caught on surveillance video clashing with Capitol police alongside Walls-Kaufman, prosecutors said. His trial for his alleged actions that day was scheduled to begin in May before it was scrubbed this week. Walls-Kaufman was sentenced in June 2023 to two months in prison after pleading guilty and admitting that he “scuffled” with officers, according to NBC News.

Taylor Taranto appears amidst the melee at the U.S. Capitol Complex on Jan. 6, 2021. (Erin Smith lawsuit)

Last Thursday, Erin Smith’s lawyers filed a motion to compel in the wrongful death case, seeking a response to a subpoena that had been served on the Metropolitan Police Department in connection to what happened to her husband, according to court documents viewed by Law&Crime. Police officials responded Thursday with a filing saying it had compiled the requested info.

Erin Smith has called the attack on her husband an “unlawful” and “intentional” assault.

“As a direct and proximate result of the intentional assault … which, in turn, caused Smith’s death, Erin Smith sustained pecuniary loss, mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, loss of society, loss of companionship, loss of comfort of protection, loss of marital care, loss of filial care, loss of attention, loss of advice, loss of counsel, loss of training, loss of guidance and loss of consortium,” her suit says.

In addition to Jan. 6, Taranto was arrested and charged for allegedly showing up to former President Barack Obama‘s home in Washington, D.C., in 2023 toting guns, ammunition and possible supplies for an explosive device.

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Trump Jan. 6 judge hammers pardon of all Capitol rioters

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:25:17 +0000

Top inset: U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts via AP, File). Bottom inset: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana). Background: Rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File).

A federal judge this week had choice words for Donald Trump‘s pardon freeing the rioters charged for the events on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw Trump’s criminal prosecution involving his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election before the case was dropped, said in an order dismissing another Jan. 6 defendant’s case, “No pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.”

“On that day, ‘a mob professing support for then-President Trump violently attacked the Capitol’… the dismissal of this case cannot undo the ‘rampage [that] left multiple people dead, injured more than 140 people, and inflicted millions of dollars in damage”” she wrote. “It cannot diminish the heroism of law enforcement who ‘struggled, facing serious injury and even death, to control the mob that overwhelmed them’… it cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake.”

Above all, she added, “It cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”

The comments from Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, followed comments from other prominent judges who took issue with Trump’s pardon.

In her order on Wednesday dismissing a Jan. 6 defendant’s case, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, said what occurred that day is “preserved for the future through thousands of contemporaneous videos, transcripts of trials, jury verdicts, and judicial opinions analyzing and recounting the evidence through a neutral lens.”

“Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” she wrote.

She added that the role of law enforcement that day and the officers’ heroism cannot be altered or ignored.

“Grossly outnumbered, those law enforcement officers acted valiantly to protect the Members of Congress, their staff, the Vice President and his family, the integrity of the Capitol grounds, and the Capitol Building-our symbol of liberty and a symbol of democratic rule around the world,” she said. “For hours, those officers were aggressively confronted and violently assaulted. More than 140 officers were injured. Others tragically passed away as a result of the events of that day. But law enforcement did not falter. Standing with bear spray streaming down their faces, those officers carried out their duty to protect.

“All of what I have described has been recorded for posterity, ensuring that what transpired on January 6, 2021 can be judged accurately in the future,” she wrote.

Judge Beryl Howell, another Obama appointee, said in her order involving two Proud Boys who admitted to their roles in the riots, that Trump’s dismissals undermine the rule of law.

“This Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement,” she wrote. “The prosecutions in this case and others charging defendants for their criminal conduct at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, present no injustice, but instead reflect the diligent work of conscientious public servants, including prosecutors and law enforcement officials, and dedicated defense attorneys, to defend our democracy and rights and preserve our long tradition of peaceful transfers of power — which, until January 6, 2021, served as a model to the world — all while affording those charged every protection guaranteed by our Constitution and the criminal justice system.”

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Jan. 6 rioters won’t be getting the Trump treatment: DOJ

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:28:03 +0000

FILE – Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File).

Justice Department prosecutors on Monday said they couldn’t care less about special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to call it quits in the Washington, D.C., criminal case against Donald Trump, telling an accused Jan. 6 rioter who brought it up in a motion recently that the move was an “unprecedented circumstance” and shouldn’t be expected in cases involving private citizens.

“The defendant’s citation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to vacate a briefing schedule in the matter of United States v. Trump, is inapposite,” DOJ prosecutors argued in a filing opposing accused Jan. 6 rioter Stephen Baker‘s request to continue his case.

“That motion refers to the ‘unprecedented circumstance’ of a criminal defendant being ‘expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025,”” the filing said. “The need to ‘determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,’ id., is not similarly implicated in this case, where the defendant is a private citizen.”

Baker has been charged with four misdemeanors, including trespassing and disorderly conduct, for his alleged role in the 2020 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He was scheduled to go on trial this week before his lawyers filed their motion on Sunday to continue his case.

In the motion, Baker’s attorney William Shipley honed in on how Smith made an “unopposed motion” to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to “vacate briefing schedule” in the Trump case after his victory in the 2024 presidential election.

“By that motion, the Department of Justice took the official position that the results of the November 5 election has resulted in an ‘unprecedented circumstance’ that constitutes grounds for pausing an ongoing criminal prosecution of a defendant in connection with the events of January 6, 2021,” the motion argued. “Given the position now taken by the Department of Justice through Special Counsel Jack Smith, directly supervised by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, in the interests of justice, should adopt the same position in this case … that the unique circumstances created by the outcome of the election justifies pausing all proceedings in this matter, with the parties responding back to the Court with regard to how this case should further proceed — if at all — beginning 70 days from now, January 20, 2025.”

Motions have been hurled left and right at Jan. 6 judges over the past week following Trump’s election win, with defendants from all over the country reportedly pleading their case.

“Ultimately, my jury was the entire American public, and they voted for a mandate to set me free,” wrote one alleged rioter from Kansas, Will Pope, in a motion filed Friday. “If there should be a jury trial in my case, it should happen after emotions have had time to cool.”

The Justice Department wasn’t having it with that excuse, either.

“No continuance is warranted here,” prosecutors said in an opposition filing on Saturday, first reported by the Kansas Reflector. “At this time, the defendant’s expectation of a pardon is mere speculation, and the Court should proceed as it would in any other prosecution.”

Baker, a self-described “citizen journalist” based out of Texas who has written for conservative outlets, is accused of storming into the U.S. Capitol through a broken door before joining up with a mob of people and making his way inside the office of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He is facing two counts of entering a restricted building and two counts of disorderly conduct and demonstrating in a Capitol building.

In his motion to delay his trial, Baker’s legal team argued that the “unique circumstances” of having a president-elect who has “pledged to reverse the decision-making of the predecessor administration” is what ultimately spurred his request, along with Smith’s pause on Trump’s criminal case.

“To deny this motion, in the face of the Justice Department’s official position, would run contrary to the interests of justice and likely subject the defendant to criminal convictions for no purpose other than expediency,” Baker’s motion said.

“Before the Government makes the claim that the ‘people’ have an interest in the administration of justice as reflected in the Speedy Trial Act, Defendant Baker would point out that the ‘people’ on behalf of whom the Government purports to speak made themselves heard clearly on November 5, and that should mean something to the Department of Justice without regard to what Administration is now in charge,” the motion added.

Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, sided with the prosecutors, rejecting Baker’s motion in a minute order posted to the federal docket on Monday.

That order indicated that Baker may not face trial after all.

“It is hereby ORDERED that the parties shall appear for a change-of-plea hearing on November 12, 2024,” the two-sentence order said.

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One of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters sentenced to 8 years

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 07:12:00 +0000

Zachary Alam (U.S. Attorney’s Office).

A Virginia man who smashed windows in the Speaker’s Lobby moments before Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by a U.S. Capitol officer during the Jan. 6 riots was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Zachary Jordan Alam, 32, learned his fate this week. In addition to the prison time, he was also given 36 months of supervised release and ordered to pay $4,484 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Donald Trump appointee, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release.

Alam told the court he wanted a full pardon after Donald Trump takes office in January and defended his actions, even though he said he knew they were illegal, reported NBC News’ Ryan Reilly, who has covered these cases extensively and written a book about them: “Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System.”

“Trump just won the presidential election less than 48 hours ago,” Alam said. “Was the 2021 transfer of presidential power warranted? I don’t think so.”

Alam was convicted in September of assaulting officers, civil disorder, destruction of government property, trespassing, disorderly conduct and picketing in a Capitol building.

He helped other rioters scale barriers propped as make-shift ladders outside the Capitol. He entered the building at 2:17 p.m. through a broken window adjacent to the Senate Wing emergency exit doors, according to the statement of facts filed in his criminal caase.

Alam spent 30 minutes inside roaming around. On one floor, he tried to kick in a door. On another floor, he threw a red velvet rope from a balcony at police officers below, court documents said.

At 2:33 p.m., he was corralled in the Will Rogers corridor, where he yelled at officers, laughed, argued with other rioters, and joined the mob that pushed through the police line.

Later, he went to the Speaker’s Lobby, where he looked through the glass door inside as members of Congress and staff were evacuating the chamber.

“I’m going to f— you up,” he shouted at the front of the mob multiple times in the faces of officers standing guard.

Alam moved to the doors, punched the glass repeatedly with his fist, and shattered three glass door panes as members.

As he punched the door, Alam pushed up against three officers standing guard. Alam rallied the crowd, announcing that “the problem” was with the House members. Alam then used a black helmet to smash out three glass panes.

As he was leaving the area, Alam called out to fellow rioters, “we need guns, bro … we need guns.”

In the government’s sentencing memo, seeking 136 months of incarceration – or more than 11 years – prosecutors said the defendant was one of the most violent and aggressive rioters that day.

“As established at trial, he spent the day antagonizing officers and inciting other rioters, culminating in his repeated violent and forceful attempts to reach congressional members and staffers as they frantically evacuated the House floor,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that after he was arrested on Jan. 30, 2021, at a motel in Denver, Pennsylvania, agents found evidence of his flight and his plans to dispose of evidence connecting him to Jan. 6. They found Alam’s journal, recording his reflections of that day and his plans to flee and conceal his identity, including setting up new bank accounts and using a “burner” phone to conceal his identity and location from law enforcement.

In his sentencing memo asking for 57 months – or nearly five years incarceration – Alam’s attorney, Steven Metcalf, said he traveled alone, did not physically injure anyone, and left the building after Babbitt was shot by an officer in front of Alam. His client has acknowledged the seriousness of his charges, Metcalf wrote. He also said Alam has become a public figure of scrutiny on both the left and the right of the political mayhem ensuing following Jan. 6 and has been villainized as an “Antifa activist, anarchist, and even a federal agent, banned from so-called patriot groups,” Metcalf wrote.

“Here, Mr. Alam is lost in this world. He is a loner, one who went to the Capitol on his own, and acted at times in a manner he may have believed others wanted him to act,” Metcalf wrote. “Alam wanted to fit in, it did not matter with whom, Alam just wanted to fit in somewhere because he has been rejected by everyone else in his life.”

Alam is a medical school dropout whose father is of Palestinian descent, and his mother is of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, the document said. Dropping out of medical school strained his relationship with his father. After his Jan. 6 arrest, the relationship took another wrong turn. His struggles include living for a time in a storage unit, where he would sneak in and out so others would not see him.

He showered at a local gym to get ready for the day with proper hygiene. Then COVID hit, and all the gyms closed.

“Something then changed in Alam,” the memo said. “This is how Alam ended up in his position on January 6, 2021.”

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