Trump gives Jan. 6 defendant a second pardon for firearm offenses

President Trump has pardoned Dan Wilson, a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, for a second time, this time for illegally possessing firearms.

Wilson, of Kentucky, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2024 for his role in the Jan. 6 attacks. He had previously pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of an unregistered firearm for having firearms in his home.

He was pardoned of his involvement in the Capitol attack after Mr. Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants and commuted the sentences of others on his first day in office.

But Wilson stayed in prison due to his other offense.

Wilson was scheduled to be in prison until 2028, but was released Friday evening.

A White House official said the subsequent pardon was “because the search of Mr. Wilson’s home was due to the events of January 6, and they should have never been there in the first place, President Trump is pardoning Mr. Wilson for the firearm issues.”

The Justice Department originally said in February that Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons did not extend to Wilson’s firearm offense, but the department later changed course after it received “further clarity.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. said that Wilson began planning his Jan. 6 plans in 2020. Prosecutors wrote that he went by “Live Wire” online and exchanged encrypted messages with others about his plans.

He was a militia member of both the Oath Keepers and the Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers.

“In my opinion I don’t think it’s time to gun up for the sixth we have to play this out but if they seat biden on the 20th all bets are off it’s gonna happen even if Trump wins we have to get this government under control it’s been crossing my mind if we go to a Civil War do we try to take Washington DC first or do we try to take state capitals first,” he said in one encrypted messaging application in December 2020.

In another, he said, “I am ready to lay my life on the line. It is time for good men to do bad things.”

On the day of the Capitol attack, he shared via Zello, a walkie-talkie type app, that “all hands on deck” were needed at the Capitol.

“We are grateful that President Trump has recognized the injustice in my client’s case and granted him this pardon,” attorney George Pallas said in an email. “Mr. Wilson can now reunite with his family and begin rebuilding his life.”