On January 6, rioters pardoned by Trump were sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy at the FBI
A U.S. veteran was sentenced to life imprisonment Wednesday for plotting to attack the FBI's office and assassinate law enforcement officers in retaliation for his arrest for allegations that he was part of a mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, court records show.
Edward Kelley was one of the first thugs to violate the Capitol. Prosecutors said nearly two years later, he and another man had a plan to attack the FBI office in Knoxville, Tennessee using improvised explosive devices associated with vehicles and drones.
Last November, a jury found Kelley conspiring to murder federal employees, demanding a violent crime and threatening to affect federal officials.
Kelley, 36, was pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump for his Jan. 6 conviction, but the judge agreed with the prosecutor's consent that Trump's actions did not extend to Kelley's Tennessee case. This makes Kelley the only a few defendants of Congress riots after Trump's leniency.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan sentenced Kelley to life imprisonment at a hearing in Knoxville, according to court records. The judge denied asking Kelley to release, awaiting the outcome of the appeal.
Prosecutors recommended a life sentence for Kelley, saying he was innocent and powerless.
They wrote: “Instead, Kelly not only believed that his conviction was justified, but that his duty as a self-proclaimed “patriot” forced him to target the assassinated law enforcement in East Tennessee.”
Kelly served in the Marine Corps for eight years. He was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired in 2015.
According to the FBI, Kelley was captured in a video on January 6, 2021, helping two other thugs throw Capitol police officers on the ground and damage windows with a piece of wood. The FBI said he was the fourth person to enter the Capitol through a broken window.
In a press conference in Washington, D.C. on January 22, 2025, former U.S. Congressman Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Daniel Hodges condemned the pardon of U.S. President Donald Trump in order to attack the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol building, where the two were attacked during the January 6 attack.
A federal judge in Washington found Kelley guilty of 11 counts of riots last November after a trial without a jury. Before Kelly was sentenced, Trump pardoned him and hundreds of other convicted Capitol mobs.
Kelley argued that his pardon was broad enough to cover his actions in the Tennessee case, but the judge disagreed. Warren said Kelly's crime in the Tennessee case was separated from Kelly's actions on January 6. The prosecutor came to the same conclusion.
However, in other cases on Jan. 6, the Trump Justice Department argued that the pardon applies to a separate conviction. For example, prosecutors concluded that a Kentuckian's pardon attacked the Capitol, and his conviction for illegal possession of a firearm also covered his conviction when FBI agents searched for his home for a Jan. 6 investigation.
Kelley has been sentenced to jail since December 2022. His attorney Mark Brown said Kelley did not hurt anyone or directly threaten anyone with violence. Brown urged the judge to reject the prosecutor's requirement to apply “enhanced terrorism” when calculating the client's judgment.
Less than 24 hours after being pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump, some convicted people were released on January 6. On his first day of office, Trump pardoned about 1,600 criminals and committed more than a dozen sentences.
“Kelley should not sentence the same sentence as the actual 'terrorists' who injured or killed hundreds or thousands of U.S. citizens,” Brown wrote.
Kelley's co-defendant Austin Carter pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in January 2024. He plans to be sentenced on August 4.
Prosecutors said Kelley created a list of 36 law enforcement officers for alleged assassination and sharing it with Carter and called it their first “mission.” All officers were involved in Kelly's arrest in May 2022 on congressional riot charges and FBI searches for his home.
“The evidence from the trial shows that Kelley targets law enforcement because of the expected role Kelley hopes to initiate in the civil war and because of his hostility to those who participated in his May 2022 arrest and search of his house,” the prosecutor wrote.
