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Edward Kelley had been convicted of plotting to kill the law enforcement officers who had investigated his case.
July 3, 2025, 1:51 p.m. ET
A Tennessee man pardoned by President Trump for taking part in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to life in prison for hatching a separate plot to assassinate the law enforcement officers who investigated his role in the riot.
The life term imposed on the man, Edward Kelley, came during a hearing on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Knoxville, Tenn. Mr. Kelley was convicted at a trial there in November of charges that included conspiracy to murder federal employees and threatening federal agents.
During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that in 2022, while Mr. Kelley was at home facing charges in his Jan. 6-related case, he formed a group “that was preparing for armed conflict against the United States government” — specifically, the F.B.I. Mr. Kelley, a former Marine, had been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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He made a list of nearly 40 people who had been involved in his arrest or who had helped to search his home as part of the Jan. 6 investigation, targeting them for assassination, prosecutors said. Mr. Kelley also planned to attack an F.B.I. office in Knoxville, prosecutors said, using improvised explosive devices attached to vehicles and drones.
He was ultimately turned in by one of his co-conspirators who secretly recorded him.
Just weeks before his conviction in Knoxville, Mr. Kelley was also found guilty of assault, civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding by a federal judge at a bench trial in Washington for his role in the Capitol attack.
