President Donald Trump's pardon attorney is personally reviewing the cases of militia leaders who were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the January 6 attack, Politico reported on Tuesday.
Attorney Peter Ticktin, who went to school with Trump at New York Military Academy, "hand delivered a collection of 11 pardon applications to Martin at the Justice Department on Thursday," said the the report. One of the names was Stewart Rhodes, the former leader of the Oath Keepers "who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in prison in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack."
Ticktin and pardoned January 6 rioter Treniss Evans, who serve with the far-right nonprofit American Rights Alliance, arranged the applications, along with some for Proud Boys Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola.
Most people with January 6 convictions were pardoned outright by Trump; however, a handful of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militiamen with seditious conspiracy convictions only had their sentences commuted, which freed them from prison but did not expunge their criminal convictions. With Martin at the helm, they reportedly want to try for full pardons themselves.
Martin, a far-right activist from Missouri who gave legal representation to some of the January 6 rioters, was initially appointed to serve as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia when Trump took office, despite having no prosecutorial experience.
He swiftly generated controversy by moving for dismissals of cases he himself represented, a serious conflict of interest, while firing off threatening letters to several individuals and organizations that annoyed Trump's supporters, including members of Congress, Wikipedia, and the American College of Chest Physicians.
The chaos at the U.S. attorney's office led to a critical mass of Senate Republicans forcing Trump to abandon his nomination of Martin to serve in that role on a permanent basis. He subsequently named longtime Fox News personality and former New York judge Jeanine Pirro in his place, and installed Martin as the chief pardon attorney for the Justice Department.
