Edward Kelley (images via FBI court filing).
A federal judge in Tennessee has sided with the U.S. Justice Department in refusing to drop the conviction of a Jan. 6 rioter found guilty of plotting to kill the FBI agents who investigated him — saying he took “independent, volitional action” that President Donald Trump’s blanket pardon for the 2021 Capitol attack does not cover.
Edward Kelley, 35, of Maryville, tried claiming that his federal murder plot case and conviction in the Volunteer State last year was “related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” according to court documents. He filed a motion to dismiss his indictment and to vacate his jury convictions on Jan. 27, one week after Trump issued his executive order. The DOJ urged U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan last month to maintain Kelley’s conviction, condemning his claims as “wrong” and Kelley, himself, for having “no authority supporting his position.”
On Monday, Varlan — a George W. Bush appointee — agreed and ruled in favor of rejecting Kelley’s court bid to get his murder plot conviction covered by Trump’s pardon, saying “none of the substantive offenses or charging provisions overlap” in the way Kelley has claimed in filings.
“The Court finds that defendant’s Tennessee Case lacks a sufficient causal connection to ‘events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021’ for purposes of the pardon,” Varlan said in a 20-page opinion. “Trial evidence established that defendant took independent, volitional action to prepare for a violent attack against federal officials in Knoxville — actions that are causally attenuated from the events of Jan. 6,” Varlan explained.
In November, Kelley was convicted in the Eastern District of Tennessee on charges of conspiracy to murder federal employees, solicitation to commit a crime of violence and influencing a federal official by threat following a three-day trial. He’s due to be sentenced in May, a little over a month after his scheduled sentence in his Jan. 6 case in Washington, D.C., before Trump’s pardons were handed down in an executive order.
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In his Jan. 6 case, Kelley was found guilty of three felonies — including civil disorder, destruction of government property in an amount over $1,000 and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers — for storming the Capitol building and attacking a police officer. Evidence presented at a separate trial in Knoxville, Tennessee, showed how he “developed a plan to murder law enforcement” while his Jan. 6 charges and trial were pending. Prosecutors said Kelley compiled a “kill list” of FBI agents and employees who were probing him and his Jan. 6 conduct, which he then distributed to “conspirators,” along with images of the targets. They described how Kelley planned “assassination missions” for each of his targets and talked about them with others.
“Beginning with a comparison of defendant’s substantive offenses, there is no overlap whatsoever between the indictments in the D.C. and Tennessee Cases with respect to charging statutes or substantive conduct alleged,” Varlan said Monday. “None of the substantive offenses or charging provisions overlap. Moreover, counsel for both parties did not attempt to relate these unrelated substantive offenses at trial.”
In determining whether Kelley’s Tennessee case falls within the scope of Trump’s blanket pardon, Varlan said he evaluated “relations of time and place” and “other potential relations.” He found that Kelley’s case “lacks a sufficient causal connection” to the events that occurred at or near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 “for the purposes of the pardon” and noted how Trump’s executive order “situates” related events as being within the “physical vicinity” of the Capitol.
“The pardon’s first locational term, ‘at … the United States Capitol’ straightforwardly refers to the Capitol grounds and building,” Varlan said. “The second term, ‘or near the United States Capitol,’ is undefined, but its contextual meaning is shaped directly by the term ‘at,”” the judge explained. “And the ordinary meaning of the term ‘near,’ defined as ‘close at hand’ and ‘not distant,’ could not be understood to encompass, for example, all events occurring within the District of Columbia. Nor could ‘near’ be read to include events occurring in an entirely different state.”
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In their opposition filing to Kelley’s request, DOJ prosecutors pointed to courts that have already “reached the same conclusion for conduct separate in time or place” from Jan. 6 for at least two other rioters: Taylor Taranto and Dan Wilson. Varlan cited both in her Monday ruling, but noted how the DOJ flipped its opinion in the Wilson case to agree that his separate crimes — firearms convictions in the District of Columbia — should be covered by Trump’s order, something Kelley brought up in court filings as well.
“While the Wilson court has yet to rule on the matter, this change in position underscores the importance of applying interpretive canons to the pardon itself,” Varlan said. “In any event, the nonbinding Wilson case is distinguishable from the case at bar on several grounds, including the substantive nature of the non-D.C. charges, the existence of a trial record, and the government’s position.”
Kelley is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison at sentencing, according to prosecutors.
