July 29, 2025 - Epoch Times
09:10
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| Time | Text |
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| Among the very first things that President Trump did upon retaking the White House back in January was to issue an executive proclamation granting clemency to all those involved in January the 6th. | |
| Specifically, President Trump in his proclamation wrote the following, quote, This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation. | |
| I do hereby grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to the events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021. | |
| More than 1,500 individuals were given pardons because of this proclamation. | |
| Now, among the individuals covered by that pardon was this man right here, Mr. Edward Kelly. | |
| And like all other pardoned individuals, Mr. Kelly's charges stemmed from his participation at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. | |
| Here is specifically what Mr. Kelly's involvement actually was. | |
| Quote, According to court filings, Kelly traveled to Washington from Tennessee and attended a rally held by then President Donald Trump before walking to the Capitol and becoming involved in an altercation with a U.S. Capitol police officer outside the building. | |
| Kelly later used a piece of wood to break a window at the Capitol and enter the building through the window frame. | |
| He kicked a closed door to the Senate wing open and was among those who entered the Senate gallery. | |
| And for those actions, Mr. Kelly was charged on 11 different counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, engaging in physical violence, and so on. | |
| He was eventually found guilty on all 11 counts, and he faced the prospect of spending upwards of 10 years behind bars in federal prison. | |
| However, that never happened. | |
| That's because Mr. Kelly, he was charged in December of 2022, found guilty in November of 2024, and he was scheduled to be sentenced on April 7th of 2025. | |
| But as we just mentioned a moment ago, in that short interim period, President Trump re-entered the White House, he issued clemency to all those involved in January 6th, and that was it. | |
| That was obviously a very fortuitous turn of events for Mr. Kelly. | |
| He went from being a convicted felon looking at 10 years behind bars to instead being a free man. | |
| However, there was something that I haven't yet mentioned to you in his story, which is that if we go back to the timeline, during the period of time when Mr. Kelly was still awaiting his trial, he decided to take matters into his own hands and murder the FBI employees who are working on his case. | |
| Specifically, this is what the feds were able to uncover that he was up to prior to his trial. | |
| Quote, The evidence presented at trial established that Mr. Kelly, while awaiting trial for his involvement in the January 6th, 2021 Capitol breach, developed a plan to murder law enforcement, including FBI agents and employees. | |
| The proof showed that Kelly developed a kill list of FBI agents and others who participated in the investigation into his conduct on January 6th, and that Kelly distributed this list along with videos containing images of certain FBI employees identified on the list to a co-conspirator as part of his mission. | |
| The co-conspirator that they mentioned was this man here, Mr. Austin Carter. | |
| He was involved in the murder plot. | |
| He was arrested and then he flipped and decided to cooperate with the feds by telling them everything. | |
| And to that end, during the actual trial, Mr. Carter testified that, quote, Kelly planned to attack the FBI's office in Knoxville with car bombs and explosives delivered by drones. | |
| He also said that there were discussions about killing FBI agents in their homes and public places like movie theaters. | |
| And obviously, with what just happened over in the state of Minnesota, where state lawmakers were literally killed in their homes, you have to take these sorts of plans very, very seriously, especially given how serious Mr. Kelly appeared to be. | |
| Here is what the state prosecutors wrote. | |
| Quote, He formed a self-styled militia to attack the FBI. | |
| He conducted combat drills to realize his plan. | |
| He strategized ways to bomb the FBI Knoxville office. | |
| He identified a hornet's nest at which to store his various weapons at arm's reach. | |
| He devised a kill list of individual agents to be targeted. | |
| And then also during the actual trial, it was revealed that the U.S. government had secret recordings of Mr. Kelly, which went as follows. | |
| Quote, At trial, the United States introduced recordings of the defendant calling for the development of a course of action related to his plan. | |
| In one such recording, the defendant gave the instructions to, among other things, start it, attack, and take out their office in the event of his arrest. | |
| Kelly was recorded stating, every hit has to hurt. | |
| Every hit has to hurt. | |
| And as such, Mr. Kelly was arrested and charged with three counts. | |
| One count of conspiracy to commit murder of federal officials, one count of soliciting a crime of violence, and one count of threatening federal officials. | |
| The trial for this case took place back in November of 2024 and lasted for three days. | |
| Now, the main argument that Mr. Kelly's lawyer was making was that, quote, Kelly did not hurt anybody or directly threaten anybody with violence and that his remarks amounted to protected speech under the First Amendment. | |
| However, the jury did not buy that argument. | |
| Instead, the jury found that the evidence was clear that Mr. Kelly was recruiting, training, and organizing others in order to, quote, target law enforcement officers for assassination. | |
| They therefore found him guilty on all counts. | |
| Now, for these crimes, Mr. Kelly was facing the prospect of life in prison. | |
| But he had one more straw left to grasp. | |
| Because you see, Mr. Kelly was found guilty on November 20th of 2024. | |
| But he was not due to be sentenced until May 7th of 2025. | |
| And as we mentioned earlier, in that interim period, Trump re-entered the White House and he issued that executive proclamation giving clemency to all those involved in the January 6th Capitol breach. | |
| And so, as any good lawyer would do, Mr. Kelly's attorney began to make the argument that Trump's pardon actually also covers Mr. Kelly's actions over in the state of Tennessee. | |
| Quote, Lawyers for Kelly told a federal judge in Tennessee after Trump's announcement that the case involving the plot to kill FBI agents is unmistakably related to his charges in Washington, D.C. and covered by his presidential pardon. | |
| That's because both cases were led by the same FBI agent. | |
| They also argued that Kelly would never have been able to develop a so-called hit list if he had not been provided unredacted discovery documents in the January 6th case identifying FBI personnel. | |
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| And now let's head on back to the studio. | |
| Now that is, in and of itself, not a totally unreasonable argument. | |
| I mean, the two cases are somewhat related, but the court was not buying it. | |
| They cited the fact that, for one, the plot to kill these FBI agents happened roughly two years after the events of January 6th. | |
| And secondly, it was done in a totally different part of the country, in Tennessee, rather than in Washington, D.C. Therefore, the judge dismissed this line of argument, and just last week, he sentenced Mr. Kelly to life in prison. | |
| Also, just for your reference, Mr. Austin Carter, the co-conspirator who flipped and testified, he had already pled guilty to three counts related to this case earlier, and he will be having his sentence handed down in August of this year. | |
| And so there you have it, the story of how one man was able to secure a rare presidential pardon, but then still get life in prison. | |
| If you'd like to read the original court documents in this particular case and go through all the nuances and details for yourself, I will throw the PDF versions of them down into the description box below this video so you can peruse them at your own leisure. | |
| And all I can return is that as you're making your way down there to the description box, take a super short detour to smash those like and subscribe buttons so that this video can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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