Kentucky man who participated in Jan. 6 riot receives second pardon from Trump

Piper Hansen, Lexington Herald-Leader on Nov 18, 2025

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — President Donald Trump has issued a second pardon to a Kentucky man who participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Daniel Edwin Wilson, who is from Louisville, was pardoned Nov. 14 for illegally possessing firearms and unregistered firearms.

Wilson was previously pardoned for his participation in the 2021 Capitol attack. He was among more than 25 Kentuckians charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

While executing a June 2022 search warrant as part of the investigation into his involvement in the riot, law enforcement officers from the FBI found six firearms in Wilson’s Kentucky home. He was prohibited at the time due to felony convictions to possess guns.

At least two of the guns were loaded when they were seized and another two did not have serial numbers, the Herald-Leader previously reported.

In that search, law enforcement also recovered clothes, shoes, a backpack and a tactical plate carrier to identify Wilson in social media images and security footage from Jan. 6.

The felony gun charges are what the president pardoned Friday.

A White House official told the Associated Press on Saturday, “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.”

Attorneys representing Wilson did not respond to requests from the Herald-Leader for additional comment before publication.

Between 2,000 and 2,500 people entered the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., while Congress was certifying the vote that made Joe Biden the 46th president on Jan. 6, 2021.

More than 140 police officers were injured, and the crowd caused nearly $3 million in damage, according to federal authorities.

In January, on the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people who had been convicted or were awaiting trial or sentencing for offenses related to the riot, including Wilson.

He was sentenced to five years in prison in August 2024 after he pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge from his conduct during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

During his sentencing, Wilson said he regretted entering the Capitol but, “got involved with good intentions,” according to the Associated Press.

He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer. Wilson also had charges originally brought in the Western District of Kentucky — possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of an unregistered firearm — transferred to the D.C. federal court.

Unlike other rioters whose felony charges had been previously pardoned by the president, Wilson remained in prison for other federal crimes before being pardoned again last week.

In February, the Trump administration said the Jan. 6 pardon did not cover his firearm charges, but the Justice Department reconsidered and U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich — a Trump-appointed judge who sentenced Wilson — reconsidered and said Trump could issue a second pardon.

Friedrich was critical of the Trump administration’s moving position on the pardons and called it “extraordinary” that protections be extended to illegal weapons found by investigators.

Wilson, a self-identified member of the Oath Keepers and Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers militia, had been posting on various social media websites following the 2020 presidential election about the need to bring people together to fight against fraud and that he would be armed to do so, according to court documents.

“I am ready to lay my life on the line,” Wilson posted in a Telegram Messenger app group chat on Dec. 27, 2020, according to court documents. “It is time for good men to do bad things.”

He also asked, “What’s the current thoughts on Battle rattle? Everyone has differing opinions my personal opinion is if we’re going to go in and take over the world Guns up. if we’re just trying to put on a show leave them at home.”

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