The Justice Department has supported some Jan. 6 defendants in their claim that President Donald Trump’s mass pardon and dismissal order covers conduct beyond that day at the Capitol in 2021. That support, in turn, serves to highlight cases in which the Trump DOJ disagrees with defendants, as in the case of Taylor Taranto, whose trial began Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
Taranto was arrested in June 2023 near former President Barack Obama’s home in D.C., allegedly with firearms and ammunition in his van. Trump had posted a street address for Obama on social media, and Taranto reposted it and then began live-streaming from his van in Obama’s neighborhood, according to prosecutors.
Ahead of his trial, the government agreed to dismiss pending charges related to Taranto’s alleged Jan. 6 conduct. But that left 2023-related allegations, which Taranto argued should still be dismissed due to Trump’s Jan. 6 proclamation. Upon taking office, the president commuted the sentences of some Jan. 6 defendants, granted pardons to everyone else who had already been convicted and told the DOJ to dismiss pending charges “against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, rejected Taranto’s attempt to use that dismissal order to get rid of all his charges. But Taranto raised the issue again ahead of trial, urging the judge to reconsider based on the DOJ’s inconsistent positions in various Jan. 6 cases.
“The basis for reconsideration is that shortly after the government opposed dismissal of Mr. Taranto’s charges under the pardon, the government has taken the position in multiple filings in other cases that the pardon granted by President Trump is broader than it originally had argued or than it argued in this case,” Taranto wrote.
The DOJ replied last week that Taranto’s “disagreement with how the prosecution exercised its charging authority and how it applied that proclamation cannot be the basis for dismissal of the charges.” In a final reply on the matter ahead of his trial, Taranto argued that his 2023-related charges are more connected to Jan. 6 than other cases in which the DOJ had agreed with defendants that Trump’s order covered their conduct. The docket doesn’t reflect any action from the judge on Taranto’s motion for reconsideration since he filed his reply. The trial is proceeding before Nichols only, not before a jury. But whatever happens at the trial or on any appeal, the mass dismissal order itself is unlikely to save the defendant. Even in cases where the Trump DOJ sided with defendants on the scope of Trump’s proclamation, judges haven’t always agreed. Of course, Trump could always issue a new pardon for Taranto. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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