A couple of weeks ago, the public learned about a Jan. 6 rioter who was arrested on a gun charge in Texas more than a year after receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. Just days earlier, law enforcement officials in Florida announced a prostitution, human trafficking and child predator sting, which led to the arrest of two more Jan. 6 participants who’d also received pardons from the incumbent president.
Two weeks before that, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter reached a plea agreement with prosecutors over charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and possessing sexually explicit images of children. Those developments come three weeks after a different Jan. 6 rioter who received a presidential pardon was sentenced to four years in prison on child pornography charges. Earlier in the month, a different Jan. 6 rioter, who was also rescued by Trump, was sentenced to life in prison for molesting two children.
It was hard not to wonder: Just how many pardoned Jan. 6 rioters have run into fresh trouble with the law after receiving clemency from Trump? As it turns out, an answer has come into focus: Lawfare, a nonprofit legal issues publication, published a study this week that found at least 97 people who were charged with crimes in connection with the assault on the U.S. Capitol and who have been accused of new crimes. The New York Times noted that the total is “larger than previously known.”
But not everyone who participated in Jan. 6 and received a Trump pardon went on to get re-arrested. Some were also rewarded with important federal jobs in the Trump administration.
Last summer, for example, Trump’s Justice Department hired Jared Wise, a former FBI agent who participated in the Jan. 6 riot and was filmed urging his fellow insurrectionists to “kill” police officers. This week, The Washington Post also reported on a rioter named Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to 14 days in jail in 2023 and who was recently hired for a sensitive counterterrorism job in a Pentagon office “that manages highly classified military operations.”
In a follow-up report published Thursday, the Post shed light on additional details surrounding Irizarry’s activities during the assault on the Capitol.
A recent appointee to a sensitive counterterrorism job in the Defense Department was filmed for more than five minutes during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot as he moved through restricted grounds and climbed through a broken window, holding a metal pole, to enter the U.S. Capitol, according to a Washington Post analysis. […]
The Post confirmed Irizarry’s presence in five videos by matching them with screenshots or photographs in court filings or with events described in those filings. In two other videos, clothing worn by Irizarry and his companions, and their presence together, made the identification possible. The videos were obtained from social media, a related court case and other sources.
MS NOW has not independently reviewed the videos, and Irizarry did not respond to requests for comment.