By Anonymous Guest Contributor
Dan Wilson’s story is one of the most distasteful examples of how the Department of Justice has undermined the rule of law, the Constitution, and the very concept of presidential authority under the U.S. Constitution.
Can the DOJ walk and chew gum at the same time? Does it lack leadership to make things happen? Whether it is incompetence or deliberate is not the debate question. Nor should we be distracted by whether the blockage is by Todd Blanche or Ed Martin.
Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche can fix this, and he should! He is aware. Yet pardoned J6’er Dan Wilson remains imprisoned due to judicial overreach and US AG inaction. The inaction is the same as negative action against Dan and President Trump.
A nonviolent J6 defendant who peacefully entered the Capitol on January 6, Dan Wilson, today sits behind bars in a violent medium security prison, despite a confirmed presidential pardon that should have ended his case. Worse still, the D.C. USAO stepped back from even arguing the President’s pardon power, and that POTUS said the J6 pardon applies to contraband found solely due to the search, combined with the unfair treatment defendants were subjected to under Biden.
Wilson’s past offers no justification for continued imprisonment. He is not a career criminal nor is he a danger to society. At 18, he made a terrible teenage mistake, burglarizing a building in Kentucky. No firearm was involved. He served his time, rehabilitated himself, and trained as an industrial electrician.
For years, he lived quietly in Louisville, self-employed, caring for his elderly parents. Nothing in his record suggested violence. He mistakenly had firearms at home under the impression he could. His actions on J6 were nonviolent, with no assault, no destruction and what was only a short “self-guided tour” of the Capitol after the doors were opened. Given a 99% J6 trial conviction rate, Wilson accepted a plea deal under pressure from a DOJ that ceaselessly piled on charges and threats.
While serving the time given to him for January 6th, he was released from federal prison on January 21, 2025, after POTUS signed the pardon for the 1600 J6 Hostages. Then 2 days later the judiciary’s probation services called his mom telling her Dan needed to return to prison – as if they had the right to overrule the President. Then on February 6, 2025, the DOJ’s DC AUSA, in an illegitimate, unauthorized interpretation of Trump’s pardon and contrary to what he said, wrote to the court that the President’s pardon did not apply to Dan’s J6 search contraband. The AUSA on February 26th made the correction that the pardon did apply after being directed from US AG level, but it was too late.
The DC judge used the earlier writing to make her own illegitimate interpretation of the pardon. Many will recognize Judge Friedrich’s name – a Trump appointee who clearly despises him and every J6 defendant. On April 2, 2025, following Judge Friedrich’s order, Wilson self-surrendered to FCI Beckley in West Virginia. Even the prison warden and inmates were shocked to see him return having been previously ordered by the DOJ to release him under the J6 pardon.
On February 25, 2025, in her written response, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Blackwell confirmed that President Trump’s pardon explicitly covered the firearms charges stemming from the FBI raid on Wilson’s home and that the pardon language extended to charges tied to other similar raids on J6 defendants’ homes. That should have been the end of it. Indeed, other defendants, Elias Costianes, Daniel Ball and Guy Reffitt had their cases dismissed with prejudice under the same pardon and direction by the President to his executing US AG authority.
With Wilson’s appellate case at the D.C. Circuit with no action from the US Pardon Attorney (they can all blame each other inside the DOJ), the D.C. USAO abdicated its role by refusing to support President Trump’s pardon. Upon Pirro’s request (did she read what her minions write for her?), the appellate court clerk appointed an outside law firm (one previously named by Trump for removal of security clearances based on actions) to argue against Wilson. Pirro’s team emailed that they would not file any appellee brief. Pirro’s team also failed to support Wilson’s motion to disqualify the conflicted amicus curiae who now incredibly proceeded to write a motion as if a party opponent.
TO VIEW PIRRO LETTER CLICK HERE
Associate Deputy AG Ed Martin is the U.S. Pardon Attorney. He reportedly holds an amended J6 pardon certificate so clearly written with the case number and the words that all counts apply for Dan’s case that neither a judge nor the Bureau of Prisons could dispute it. Such a document would force Wilson’s release. Besides Ed Martin perhaps changing his mind, only Deputy AG Todd Blanche, once Trump’s own attorney in the Stormy Daniels case, could block issuing the amended J6 Pardon Certificate. If they acted they would be following President Trump’s intent and direction. Here the inaction is in fact negative action.
When prominent social media influencers reported that Mr. Blanche was blocking the amended pardon certificate and Dan’s release, DOJ wagons were circled and many received direct calls from a protective minion within the DOJ pressuring them to take their posts down. Certainly, we couldn’t think Mr. Blanche would condone a misguided underling doing exactly the type of censorship the Trump administration said was wrong under Biden. But the fact remains that the argument over “who” blocked is a distractor from the real issue: why does this injustice continue when it can be corrected in 5 minutes of work time?
The human toll is crushing. Wilson’s elderly mother drives many hours each way to visit him, only to be turned away by repeated prison lockdowns triggered by gang violence. Without visits, and with limited calls and communication restrictions, Dan Wilson is left mentally and physically beaten down. He wonders why he isn’t freed. Dan Wilson is a son, a caretaker, and a man who paid his debt long ago. Today, he is being held as nothing less than a political prisoner under a US AG that at best appears ineffective and without care for what President Trump ordered under his Constitutional authority. Where’s the Bondi phone call to the BOP Director telling him to release Dan? Is there a paper buried on her desk, assuming anyone bothers to tell her anything?
Dan Wilson’s case is not isolated. California resident Ben Martin faces nearly identical charges from a J6 raid on his home. His fate, too, could be resolved if the USAO in the Eastern District of California honored Trump’s pardon. They refuse to take an available legal action to get the case dismissed. This is under Pam Bondi’s appointed acting US Attorney Eric Grant out there. Nobody in the US AG / DOJ is overseeing what appears to be sabotage of President Trump’s policy. 13 other January 6 defendants including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who mysteriously only received commutations, have also sought full clemency. The U.S. Pardon Attorney’s office acknowledged receipt and that these petitions are under review, but no action has been taken for months now. Joe Biggs and Stewart Rhodes are denied their rightful healthcare and veteran’s benefits, while all are cancelled out of fruitful employment.
Inaction equaling negative action cannot be ignored under the US AG. What do they need in the leadership department? We are supposed to be upset because a few senators found out that Biden’s FBI spied on them when the current AG and Congress dismissed the truth about J6 as a police instigated riot and ignore the continuing prosecutorial abuses left over from Biden’s reign of terror.
US AG paralysis cannot be overlooked as every day brings a new issue with TV appearances and verbal pablum to distract from what wasn’t fixed from the previous days. The pardon issue is an easy fix compared to the massive Obama-Biden era corruption that should be prosecuted. Yet what appears easy isn’t getting done. America needs answers and Dan needs to be released!
To help Dan pay off past legal debts and support expenses for the required expensive appeal
package, please donate at: https://www.givesendgo.com/HelpDanWilson
