Overview
- Justice Department prosecutors filed in court that Felicia Konold cannot recover $2,000 in restitution because her conviction was final when President Trump granted a pardon.
- Konold pleaded guilty to obstructing law enforcement for breaching police barricades on Jan. 6, served 45 days in prison, and was ordered to pay restitution to fund Capitol repairs.
- The DOJ has taken a narrower rule in filings, saying pardons erase obligations for defendants whose appeals were pending when pardons issued but not for defendants with final, unvacated convictions.
- The D.C. Circuit is weighing appeals from multiple pardoned Jan. 6 defendants and will decide whether the appeals-based distinction or earlier district-court rulings that returned restitution become the uniform law.
- Earlier this year the Justice Department proposed a roughly $1.8 billion compensation fund from an IRS–Trump settlement that was later shelved, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has urged claimants to pursue civil suits instead.