Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter arrested on child molestation charges, adding to pattern

[Thiệu Ngô]

Donald Trump has tried to downplay the number of accused Jan. 6 criminals who’ve ended up in legal trouble again, but the list is long and growing.

By Steve Benen

At a White House event last month, a reporter asked Donald Trump for his reaction to the arrest of a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter after he allegedly threatened to assassinate a congressional leader. “You have thousands of people that we’re dealing with and, you know, if one goes haywire,” the president said, before changing the subject midsentence.

If he were right, and just one of the Jan. 6 criminals he pardoned had ended up in legal trouble again, Trump’s reaction might have been defensible. But the growing list has many more than one name on it. NBC News reported:

A man pardoned by President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol was arrested on child molestation charges, according to Florida officials, who said he tried to use an anticipated Jan. 6 payout to silence the victim. Andrew Paul Johnson, 44, was arrested in Tennessee in August and extradited to Florida on charges of lewd/lascivious molestation, lewd/lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor.

The legal developments were first reported by The Intercept. Johnson has pleaded not guilty.

The broader circumstances surrounding pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who have been arrested after receiving clemency from Trump are familiar.

It was, after all, just last month when a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter was arrested after threatening to assassinate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. A month earlier, Robert Keith Packer, a pardoned Jan. 6 criminal best known for wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt inside the Capitol, was arrested in a dog-biting incident.

That came on the heels of another pardoned Jan. 6 criminal being convicted on child pornography charges. Two weeks earlier, another pardoned Jan. 6 rioter was convicted of plotting to kill FBI agents.

They have plenty of company. Zachary Jordan Alam, months after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, was recently convicted in connection with a home invasion. Andrew Taake, weeks after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor. Emily Hernandez, weeks after receiving a Jan. 6 pardon, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for driving drunk and killing a passenger in another car.

A recent New York Times report noted a variety of other examples, including Brent Holdridge, a pardoned Jan. 6 criminal who was arrested again in May in connection with a string of alleged thefts of industrial copper, and Matthew W. Huttle, who was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy in January after he resisted arrest during a traffic stop, shortly after receiving a presidential pardon.

What’s more, this growing list doesn’t include John Banuelos, a Jan. 6 rioter who was arrested last month on kidnapping and sexual assault charges. Banuelos wasn’t pardoned, but he saw his Jan. 6 criminal case dropped by Trump’s Justice Department the day after the Republican’s second inauguration.

The president has also begun repardoning some Jan. 6 rioters, shielding them from accountability for other crimes, unrelated to their insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol; but in most of the aforementioned cases, the accused are facing state and local charges, not federal charges.

In other words, if they’re waiting for another presidential rescue, they’re going to be disappointed.