Federal judge grants Kansas man's motion to delay Capitol riot trial until Trump takes office

A federal judge on Thursday granted a Kansas man’s motion to continue his Capitol riot trial until after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said going ahead with William Pope’s trial, which is scheduled to start Dec. 2, would waste time and resources on a case that could be tossed out if Trump follows through on his pledge to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants.

No new trial date has been set. A status hearing on the case is to be held in 30 days in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“Kudos to Judge Contreras on his reasonable, common sense decision to grant my motion to vacate my trial date,” Pope wrote on X, formerly Twitter, late Thursday morning. “But the DOJ should have never made Judge Contreras waste his time! The government should drop all January 6 cases immediately!”

Contreras, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, was one of two judges to grant such requests on Thursday. Other federal judges have denied defendants’ requests to continue their trials, saying whether Trump will pardon the Jan. 6 defendants is speculative and irrelevant to the court’s obligations and legal responsibilities under the Constitution.

Pope, of Topeka — who has two master’s degrees and is representing himself in his case — was arrested Feb. 12, 2021, on two felony counts — civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding — and six misdemeanors. The government filed a motion in August to dismiss the obstruction count after the Supreme Court issued a ruling that limited the scope of the statute the Justice Department used to charge Jan. 6 defendants.

In May, the government requested the dismissal of two of the misdemeanor charges. Pope now faces five charges.

Pope is among a group of Jan. 6 defendants who have filed motions to continue their cases until next year, citing Trump’s repeated campaign pledge to pardon them. Trump has referred to the defendants as “political prisoners” and “hostages.”

“In delivering both an electoral victory and popular vote majority, the American people gave President Trump a mandate to carry out the agenda he campaigned on, which includes ending the January 6 prosecutions and pardoning those who exercised First Amendment rights at the Capitol,” Pope said in a motion filed on Friday.

“In contrast, Vice President (Kamala) Harris campaigned on continuing the January 6 prosecutions, and her platform was rejected by the American people. This outcome and new mandate from the people justifies my trial being continued into the next administration.”

If the trial isn’t continued, Pope said in his filing, “this Court will spend long hours deciding disagreements over motions in limine, motions to compel, the admissibility of exhibits, voir dire, jury instructions, and will then spend at least two weeks selecting jurors and hearing testimony during trial.”

“Regardless of what the jury decides, the end result will be that judicial economy will have been wasted because there will never be a sentencing, and I will be free.”

The government opposed Pope’s motion, noting that his case has been pending for more than 44 months.

“No continuance is warranted here,” it said in a motion filed Saturday. “At this time, the defendant’s expectation of a pardon is mere speculation, and the Court should proceed as it would in any other prosecution.”

Pope responded to the government’s opposition on Saturday and included a photo of him standing beside Trump.

“The government’s claim that my ‘expectation of a pardon is mere speculation’ is completely false,” he said. “President Trump has repeatedly campaigned on issuing pardons for January 6 defendants on Day 1. I also heard this from President Trump directly when I met him last year.”

In a followup filing on Wednesday, Pope said that “to proceed with a trial that the government knows will result in my exoneration is unbelievably frivolous,” adding that “the government seems hell bent on turning this trial into a circus regardless of the cost to others.”

He asked for a continuance of at least three months.

“While I’m sure the Court was looking forward to the opportunity to spend several weeks getting to know me better in person, doing so comes at the opportunity cost of other things,” he wrote. “Like time spent in prison, none of us will ever get these weeks back. But if the Court decides this show must go on, I will arrive to the circus as a lion ready to roar at the government’s clowns!”