Trump-inspired violence from January 6 rioters makes a return | Opinion
Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has called out Democrats for fueling violence against Republicans and conservatives with their rhetoric. Fair enough. Democrats have long called out Republican rhetoric in the same way.
But what about things the Trump administration has actually done that could be fueling violence? On his first day in office, Trump pardoned hundreds of violent felons who attacked police officers and the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Last weekend, one of them was arrested for making chilling death threats against Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Thirty-four-year-old Christopher P. Moynihan, who had been convicted for rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, has now been accused of sending text messages in which he wrote “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live” and “Even if I am hated he must be eliminated. I will kill him for the future.”
The speech was slated for the Economic Club of New York on Monday, making the threats imminent. Before Moynihan’s arrest, a judge granted an order restricting his access to firearms based in part on his mental instability and alleged drug use.
In a statement on Tuesday, Jeffries said: “Since the blanket pardon that occurred earlier this year, many of the criminals released have committed additional crimes throughout the country.” He added: “Unfortunately, our brave men and women in law enforcement are being forced to spend their time keeping our communities safe from these violent individuals who should never have been pardoned.”
Indeed, an ethics watchdog called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, has tracked at least 10 who are back in jail or never left because they were charged with or guilty of other crimes from child porn to homicidal drunken driving as of June. One other had died in a confrontation with police.
According to a database of news accounts from across the country obtained by The Kansas City Star, CREW’s number was an undercount. The real number of Jan. 6 defendants back in trouble with the law or in prison — including new cases since June — is 200% higher than CREW first reported with more than 30 cases. The new cases include child porn charges, alleged assault on a police officer, multiple weapons violations and rape.
What makes the Jeffries case different is that it’s the first time a Jan. 6 participant has come back for a second bite at legislators who feared for their lives during the Trump-inspired riot. It marks a dangerous escalation in the climate of political violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last month.
Trump, who continues to insist, regardless of the evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, is intimately familiar with how rhetoric can lead to violence. It was Trump’s lies about that election and attempts to subvert the result that caused the Jan. 6 riots and have now fueled the threat of further violence from the very same people.
Since his January 2025 decision to pardon the more than 1,000 men and women who rioted on his behalf, Trump has systematically set the stage for a repeat of the violence after future elections, putting election deniers in key law enforcement positions as high as U.S. Attorney General and FBI director, undermining and even shutting down federal efforts to help states secure elections, firing FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers who participated in the prosecution of violent Jan. 6 rioters and backing efforts to punish law firms that assisted people hurt by those riots.
Hopefully the New York man plotting an attack on Jeffries will spend significant time in jail on state charges that Trump cannot pardon. That’s at least one small step towards rebuilding deterrence against Trump-inspired political violence. But I doubt this is the last threat we will see from the violent felons he deliberately unleashed. They could threaten American democracy again.
David Mastio is a national columnist for McClatchy and the Kansas City Star.
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 9:41 AM with the headline "Trump-inspired violence from January 6 rioters makes a return | Opinion."
