A Second Case Emerges: Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Now Faces Child Abuse Conviction

Another defendant pardoned for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has agreed to plead guilty in a separate federal child exploitation case, after a judge ruled that President Donald Trump's pardon did not wipe away charges tied to alleged sexual abuse material and exploitation discovered during the broader investigation.

Court records and current reporting identify the defendant as David Paul Daniel of Mint Hill, North Carolina. His name joins now the infamous list of participants in the January 6 attack that have been indicted with other charges, which includes more than 33 people.

Daniel was originally charged in the Capitol case after federal authorities said he joined a violent push against police at the Senate Wing Door on Jan. 6, 2021, helping force it open during the breach.

The Justice Department said when it announced his arrest in November 2023 that he faced felony charges including assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers and civil disorder, along with several misdemeanor counts related to unlawfully entering and engaging in violence on Capitol grounds.

Other pardoned Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted in other criminal cases, including child sexual abuse cases. Daniel Tocci was sentenced to four years in prison in March. Andrew Paul Johnson was sentenced to life in prison in March after he was convicted of child sex crimes.

Separate charges followed in North Carolina. NPR's Jan. 6 archive, which tracks post-pardon legal developments, reports that Daniel later pleaded not guilty to federal charges of production of child pornography and possession of child pornography and that prosecutors said the alleged conduct involved a prepubescent minor and a child under 12 years old. Earlier local and national reporting also said the evidence was uncovered after law enforcement seized devices during the Jan. 6 investigation.

Daniel's case became part of a larger legal fight over the scope of Trump's Jan. 6 pardons. After Trump granted broad clemency to Jan. 6 defendants, some of those recipients argued the pardons should also cover unrelated crimes discovered when agents searched homes or devices during Capitol riot investigations. The Washington Post reported that federal judges in several cases rejected that theory, finding that the pardon applied to Jan. 6 offenses, not every separate crime uncovered along the way.

That legal backdrop appears to have shaped Daniel's next move. Current reporting says he has now reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in the child exploitation case after a judge ruled the Jan. 6 pardon did not apply. The available public reports do not yet fully spell out which counts he will admit to or when he will formally enter the plea in court, so those details remain to be confirmed in open proceedings.

Daniel is not the only Jan. 6 pardon recipient whose unrelated criminal case continued after clemency in the Capitol matter. NPR reports that several other former Jan. 6 defendants have faced new arrests, convictions or separate prosecutions, including cases involving child sexual abuse material, threats and other alleged offenses. Daniel's case is one of the clearest examples yet of courts drawing a line between Trump's Capitol pardons and independent federal charges that arose from evidence found during those investigations.