Pardoned Capitol rioter arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5793x3862+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1d%2F15%2F83e6f26e41009dabd9196d68d579%2Fgettyimages-2241463452.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5793x3862+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1d%2F15%2F83e6f26e41009dabd9196d68d579%2Fgettyimages-2241463452.jpg" class="img" alt="U.S. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks to reporters outside of the U.S. Capitol on October 16, 2025." fetchpriority="high"/> Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters outdoors of the U.S. Capitol on Oct.16, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photos cover caption

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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photos A person who was pardoned by President Trump after storming the U.S. Capitol in 2021 has been arrested on a cost that he threatened to kill Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries.

New York State Police say Christopher Moynihan was arrested after they had been suggested by the FBI that he had made "threats to kill a member of Congress." Court docket paperwork present his arrest got here after he allegedly texted that he deliberate to kill Jeffries, the highest Democrat within the Home.

Moynihan, 34, was arraigned in native courtroom in Clinton, N.Y. He was remanded to the Dutchess County Justice and Transition Middle "in lieu of $10,000 money bail, a $30,000 bond, or an $80,000 partially secured bond." He's scheduled to look in courtroom on Thursday.

He faces a felony cost of creating a terroristic risk.

In an announcement Tuesday, Jeffries famous Moynihan was pardoned on Trump's first day in workplace.

"Because the blanket pardon that occurred earlier this 12 months, lots of the criminals launched have dedicated extra crimes all through the nation," he stated. "Sadly, our courageous women and men in regulation enforcement are being compelled to spend their time maintaining our communities secure from these violent people who ought to by no means have been pardoned."

Moynihan was sentenced in 2023 to 21 months incarceration, 36 months supervised launch. He acquired a full pardon, together with greater than 1,500 different defendants who had been charged with crimes associated to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

On that day, Moynihan could be heard on a video captured contained in the Senate ground saying, "There's acquired to be one thing we will use towards these f***ing scumbags.''"

Whereas many individuals had no file previous to committing crimes on Jan. 6, NPR recognized dozens of defendants with prior convictions for crimes together with rape, sexual abuse of a minor, home violence, manslaughter, manufacturing of kid sexual abuse materials and drug trafficking. That features Matthew Huttle, who was shot and killed by regulation enforcement throughout a site visitors cease in Indiana days after receiving a pardon.

Moynihan's arrest comes amid rising threats to lawmakers. The Capitol Police advised NPR in an announcement in September that its brokers had been on observe to work by way of roughly 14,000 risk evaluation instances by the top of the 12 months, a dramatic spike from case workloads in earlier years.