On his first day back in office, President Trump signed blanket pardons for nearly 1,600 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He called it the end of “a grave national injustice.” He called the Capitol rioters “patriots” and “hostages.”
But in the months that followed, a growing number of those pardoned defendants went right back to committing crimes — including child sexual abuse, death threats against a sitting member of Congress, and drunk driving that killed a mother of two.
As of early 2026, at least 33 pardoned Capitol rioters have been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for additional crimes, according to an investigation by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
That number is almost certainly an undercount. The crimes range from burglary and weapons charges to rape, kidnapping, child molestation, and conspiracy to murder FBI agents.
Here’s the part that should make your stomach turn: there was no individualized review. No risk assessments. No background checks. Trump pardoned everyone — the guy who wandered through the Rotunda taking selfies and the guy who beat cops with a baseball bat — with the same stroke of the pen.
And the consequences have been devastating.
Some of the Worst Capitol Rioters Who Committed Crimes After Pardon
Andrew Paul Johnson — Child Sexual Abuse, Sentenced to Life
Andrew Paul Johnson was serving a one-year federal sentence for his role in the Capitol breach when Trump’s pardon freed him in January 2025. He celebrated on social media, posting “Free! At last! Thank you @realDonaldTrump!”
Seven months later, he was back in custody. Johnson was charged with sexually abusing two children in Hernando County, Florida — one under 12 and the other between 12 and 16. According to testimony, he used Roblox and Discord to communicate with the children, some of it sexual in nature.
He invited them to outings and repeatedly abused them. He even promised them a share of the restitution payments he expected from the Trump administration — in exchange for their silence.
In February 2026, a Florida jury convicted Johnson on five criminal charges, including molestation. On March 5, 2026, he was sentenced to life in prison. A man pardoned by the president is now locked up forever for attacking children. Those children would not have been harmed if he had stayed in federal custody.
Christopher Moynihan — Death Threats Against Rep. Hakeem Jeffries
Christopher Moynihan was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for storming the Capitol, where he rifled through papers on senators’ desks looking for material to “use against these scumbags.” Trump’s pardon wiped his record clean.
In October 2025, Moynihan sent text messages threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries before a speech in New York City. He wrote: “I cannot allow this terrorist to live… Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future.”
An anonymous tipster, who was also concerned about Moynihan’s increasing drug abuse and “homicidal ideations,” alerted the FBI. Moynihan was arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat. In February 2026, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated harassment and agreed to three years of probation.
He was the first pardoned Capitol rioter charged with threatening political violence against a member of Congress.
Matthew Huttle — Shot Dead Days After Pardon
Huttle served six months for a misdemeanor Capitol riot charge. Less than a week after his pardon, he was pulled over in Jasper County, Indiana. Body camera footage showed Huttle telling the officer he had “stormed the Capitol” and was “waiting on my pardon.”
When police moved to arrest him for being a habitual traffic violator, Huttle ran back to his car, grabbed a firearm, and struggled with the deputy. He was shot and killed at the scene. A loaded handgun and ammunition were found in his vehicle.
Emily Hernandez — 10 Years for Killing a Mother While Driving Drunk
Hernandez became infamous after photos showed her grinning while holding a piece of Nancy Pelosi’s broken nameplate during the riot. She served 30 days for a misdemeanor trespassing charge and was pardoned by Trump.
Days later, she was back in a Missouri courtroom — this time for driving drunk on the wrong side of Interstate 44 in January 2022, killing 32-year-old Victoria Wilson and seriously injuring her husband. Wilson left behind two sons.
A judge sentenced Hernandez to 10 years in prison. Victoria Wilson’s mother told the court: “Nothing will bring her back. We have an empty hole in my heart that will always be there.”
Andrew Taake — Soliciting a Minor
Taake assaulted Capitol Police officers with bear spray and a metal whip on January 6. He was sentenced to over six years in prison. When Trump’s pardon freed him, the Bureau of Prisons released him despite a pending state warrant out of Texas for soliciting a minor online — a 2016 charge from a sting operation where he allegedly sent sexually explicit messages to someone he believed was a 15-year-old girl.
Texas authorities spent weeks tracking him down. He was arrested in February 2025 in Leon County.
Edward Kelley — Life Sentence for Plotting to Murder FBI Agents
While awaiting trial for his January 6 charges, Kelley developed a “kill list” of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol attack.
A co-defendant testified that Kelley planned to bomb the FBI field office in Knoxville, Tennessee, using car bombs and explosive drones, and to assassinate agents at their homes. Kelley was recorded saying: “Every hit has to hurt.”
In July 2025, he was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to murder federal employees.
Daniel Tocci — 100,000+ Child Pornography Images
Tocci broke into the Capitol and destroyed government property on January 6. In January 2023, a police officer pulled him over in a routine traffic stop and recognized him from Capitol breach photos. When investigators searched his devices, they found more than 110,000 child sexual abuse images and videos.
In March 2026, Tocci was sentenced to four years in federal prison for possession of child pornography.
Zachary Alam — Home Invasion and Theft
Alam was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the insurrection. After Trump’s pardon freed him, he was arrested in May 2025 for breaking into a home in Virginia and stealing a computer and a diamond necklace. At his original January 6 sentencing, he had been defiant: “Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what’s right.”
Brent John Holdridge — Burglary and Grand Theft
Holdridge pleaded guilty to parading inside the Capitol building. After his pardon, he was arrested in May 2025 for stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of industrial copper wire and charged with burglary, grand theft, and possession of stolen property.
John Banuelos — Kidnapping and Sexual Assault
Banuelos had bragged in court that he wasn’t worried about his January 6 charges because “President Trump’s going to be in office six months from now.” He was right about the pardon. In October 2025, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault related to a 2018 incident in which he allegedly trapped a woman in his home while beating, strangling, and sexually assaulting her.
Bryan Battisti — Assault on Metro Trains
Battisti, described in charging documents as a self-professed white supremacist who desired to be a “lone-wolf killer,” was pardoned for his Capitol riot charges. At the time of the riot, he was already on GPS monitoring for a burglary case. On March 2, 2026, he was charged with assault and battery for allegedly touching several women’s hair on Metro trains in the D.C. area.
Enrique Tarrio — Assault Weeks After Release
The former Proud Boys leader, whose seditious conspiracy sentence was commuted by Trump, lasted less than a month before his next arrest. On February 21, 2025, he was arrested for simple assault after allegedly striking a woman during a press conference he was hosting outside the Capitol building.
The Bigger Picture
These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re data points in a pattern.
According to CREW’s analysis, at least six pardoned insurrectionists have been charged with child sex crimes. Five were charged with illegal weapons possession, including two with prior domestic violence convictions. Five faced DUI charges — two of those resulted in fatalities. Two were charged with rape.
House Judiciary Democrats published a report calling the mass pardons “a nightmare for American public safety.” Former special counsel Jack Smith, testifying before Congress in January 2026, said it was “reasonable” to expect that pardoned Capitol rioters would continue committing crimes.
And yet, some of these same people have been welcomed into Republican political circles. One pardoned rioter was invited to the White House. Another now sits on a Virginia school board. Jake Lang, who attacked officers with a baseball bat on January 6, is currently running for U.S. Senate in Florida.
When Trump was asked whether the pardons undermined his tough-on-crime message, he brushed it off: “You have thousands of people that we’re dealing with, and, you know, if one goes haywire.”
But it isn’t “one.” It’s at least 33, with more cases surfacing regularly. And the victims — the children who were abused, the mother who was killed, the woman who was assaulted, the congressman who was threatened — aren’t abstractions. They’re real people whose suffering was made possible by a president who decided that loyalty mattered more than public safety.
The pardons weren’t mercy. They were recklessness dressed up as patriotism. And we are all paying the price.
Sources: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), NPR, NBC News, The Hill, CBS News, The 19th, ABC News, The Texas Tribune, GovFacts, House Judiciary Committee Democrats Report (January 2026)
