A Jan. 6 rioter who received a pardon from President Donald Trump is in legal trouble again — this time for allegedly threatening to assassinate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
According to CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane, "court documents obtained by CBS News said Christopher Moynihan was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to 'eliminate' Jeffries" when he went to deliver a speech Monday to the Economic Club of New York.
"Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live," Moynihan, a resident of Clinton, New York, allegedly wrote in the messages. "Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future."
Moynihan was previously convicted in 2022 of obstruction, as well as pleading guilty to five misdemeanor charges, for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors detailed how Moynihan was part of a group of rioters who broke into the Senate chamber, where he "rifled through a notebook on top of a Senator's desk, saying 'There's gotta be something in here we can f------ use against these scumbags.'"
The Supreme Court would ultimately roll back the use of obstruction charges to convict Jan. 6 rioters, and upon taking office, Trump issued a blanket pardon for Moynihan and around 1,500 others prosecuted for their involvement in the insurrection.
Moynihan is far from the first Jan. 6 rioter to clash with the law again after clemency. Andrew Taake of Houston, Texas, was re-arrested on an outstanding child sex offense shortly after his pardon, and Matthew Huttle of Hobart, Indiana, was fatally shot by police while allegedly resisting arrest during a traffic stop.
