A group of Democratic senators is asking the Justice Department to help prevent convicted U.S. Capitol rioters from being reimbursed by taxpayers for court-ordered fines.
Federal judges ordered hundreds of rioters to pay restitution to offset the estimated $3 million in damages and cleanup costs from the 2021 attack. Only 15% of the costs had been reimbursed by Jan. 6 defendants as of summer 2024, according to a review by CBS News. But hours after returning to office, President Trump pardoned everybody convicted as part of the riot.
In a letter dated Monday and obtained by CBS News, the top Democrats on the Senate Rules and Senate Judiciary committees asked the Justice Department to oppose efforts to seek repayments by those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots.
“These criminals are apparently demanding taxpayer compensation, not only to refund court-ordered restitution to cover damages they caused to the Capitol Building, but also to compensate them for having to face legal consequences for their actions,” the letter reads.
A CBS News review of court filings by some of the more than 1,500 pardoned Capitol riot defendants shows a growing number of formal requests to have federal courts order reimbursements.
In a request submitted to a D.C. federal judge on Monday, riot defendant Richard Barnett cited Mr. Trump’s pardon and Barnett’s appeal of his conviction as part of a justification for the reimbursement of $2,455 in restitution and court assessment payments. Barnett’s argument, in part, cited prior cases of pardon defendants.
It said the Justice Department’s decision in February to vacate his case “wipes the slate clean, and restores to the defendant both the presumption of innocence and the right to be paid money based on a now vacated conviction.”
Barnett was found guilty by a Washington, D.C., grand jury in 2023, after prosecutors successfully argued he was on the front lines of the mob and was photographed with his feet on a desk in the office of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.
Last month, U.S. District Judge John Bates ordered the reimbursement of restitution payments to Jan. 6 defendant Yvonne St. Cyr, who was found guilty of obstructing law enforcement and other offenses as part of the Capitol riot.
Bates directed the U.S. Treasury to pay the defendant back $2,270. The judge noted that St. Cyr was in the process of appealing her case when Mr. Trump returned to office, and an appellate court moved to vacate her conviction because she received a pardon from the president, so in “the eyes of the law, no conviction ever existed.”
Bates’ 15-page order opened, “Sometimes a judge is called upon to do what the law requires, even if it may seem at odds with what justice or one’s initial instincts might warrant. This is one such occasion.”
According to court filings reviewed by CBS News, the Justice Department supported St. Cyr’s request for repayment. A filing submitted by U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro in August said the conviction “was ‘invalidated’ when the D.C. Circuit vacated it.”
But in a separate case, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss denied a refund request by convicted Capitol riot participant Hector Vargas Santos. The Justice Department had supported his request.
The Democratic senators’ letter to the Justice Department, led by Sen. Alex Padilla of California, who is the vice chair of the Senate Rules Committee, said the efforts for repayments are part of a broader effort to rewrite the history of the Capitol insurrection. The letter called it “an attempt to rewrite history and paint themselves as sympathetic victims.”
“Misusing taxpayer funds to financially reward those insurrectionists because they were prosecuted and convicted for their violent and destructive acts is unthinkable,” the letter reads.
The Justice Department confirmed to CBS News that it received the letter but did not comment.
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