It has taken longer than I expected, but the pardoned Jan6ers have begun to get back in legal trouble.
In May, Zach Alam (the guy who busted open the door through which Ashli Babbett jumped) was arrested and, last week, convicted, of larceny for a burglary in Henrico, VA.
In his opening statement, Alam said he had moved to Richmond after being lost in Washington, D.C. He claimed that after being abruptly evicted, he began looking for an Airbnb but had no phone service, and mistakenly entered the Smith family’s home instead.
The first person to discover Alam was the family’s son, a barber who had just finished work and gotten out of the shower. He found personal items spread across the guest-room bed with Alam standing there. When asked why he was in the house, Alam said he was with Xfinity to fix the Wi-Fi.
The Smith family testified that they were Verizon customers, not Xfinity. Once they realized Alam wasn’t who he claimed, they persuaded him to leave. Later that night, they discovered valuables missing, including a tablet and a diamond necklace, along with a broken window.
A neighbor told the family he’d seen Alam taking items from outside that same window.
That evening, Henrico Police located Alam less than two miles away. He never mentioned an Airbnb but told officers he was lost trying to take a train back to Washington, D.C.
[snip]
During cross-examination, Alam suggested to the Smith family that they weren’t being truthful about the burglary even asking the father whether he was sure he’d closed the door every time he went outside that day.
At one point, Alam asked Officer Minter whether the items found on him included the family’s missing tablet or necklace. When Minter began listing all the recovered objects, Alam interrupted: “Objection. Stop talking.”
Alam was always unbalanced; had he remained in prison he might have gotten badly needed treatment.
The case of Christopher Moynihan, who was arrested Sunday in New York after threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, is less predictable (though not in any way surprising).
Court documents obtained by CBS News said Christopher Moynihan was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to “eliminate” Jeffries when the top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday.
Jeffries spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Monday.
According to a court filing by prosecutors in the New York state criminal case, Moynihan wrote, “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live.”
Moynihan also allegedly stated: “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future,” the filing said.
Moynihan faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat, according to court filings shared by prosecutors.
While FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force reportedly provided the lead to local cops, thus far these charges are state charges; Trump cannot pardon Moynihan this time.
Unlike Alam, Moynihan was not detained pre-trial nor charged with assault for January 6 (though he remains detained now).
After crowding in the East side of the Capitol and rushing directly to the Senate floor, he rifled through Ted Cruz’ desk, describing that he was looking for “something we can fucking use against these scumbags.”
Moynihan continued to search through the papers, growing frustrated, and saying “[t]here’s gotta be something in here we can f*cking use against these scumbags.”
[snip]
As he reviewed the documents, Moynihan said, “This is Cruz’s sh*t. This is a good one. Him and Lawler, or whatever. Hawley, Cruz.” Ex. 13 at :24 – :46; Ex. 14 at :30 – :51. Another rioter said, “I think Cruz would want us to do this.” Moynihan responded, “Yeah. Absolutely.” Ex. 14 at :53 – :54.
Along with everyone else who breached the Senate with the clear intent of obstructing the vote certification, Moynihan was charged with and convicted, in August 2022, in a stipulated trial of obstruction under 18 USC 1512(c)(2) — one of the same crimes with which Trump was also charged. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison in February 2023 — Judge Christopher Cooper recommended he get mental health and drug treatment while in prison. But he only served a year, after which he was released pending the SCOTUS opinion that would ultimately throw out the obstruction charges against many defendants.
Moynihan might have been one of the January 6 defendants against whom the obstruction charge might still have stuck — after all, he had paper relating to the vote certification in his hands and he explicitly sought to use that information against “these scumbags.”
But he was pardoned along with everyone else.
And now, he is repeating the same kind of eliminationist language about Democrats — calling Jeffries a terrorist — that Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi have been pushing of late.
It’s only a matter of time until one of Trump’s pardonees succeeds in carrying out the violence so many continue to support. And when that happens Trump and his lackeys will own that crime, too.
Updated: Added note that this is a state charge. Trump cannot pardon Moynihan out of it.