A fourth federal judge has now rejected a request from a January 6 defendant seeking a refund of restitution paid before receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump.
The latest denial involves a Texas rioter who, according to the Justice Department, openly bragged about his role in the 2021 Capitol breach on Facebook, posting photos and videos of himself trespassing during the attack, Law & Crime reported.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, is the latest to reject a request for restitution and fine reimbursement, following a February filing by Stacy Hager, 61.
Hager, who was convicted in 2023 on four misdemeanor charges related to the Capitol breach, sought a refund of the $570 he had been ordered to pay, the outlet reported.
Federal prosecutors agreed to Hager’s request, as they have with other Jan. 6 defendants, arguing there was “no longer any basis justifying the government’s retaining funds.” But Chutkan was not convinced, referencing three other recent rejections, all occurring in her district in Washington, D.C.
“At least three other judges in this district have denied similar motions where defendants sought reimbursement for fines and fees associated with their now pardoned criminal convictions,” Chutkan wrote in her three-page order, which she issued last Thursday.
“The government concurs, acknowledging that pardons generally do not ‘make amends for the past’ nor do they afford any ‘relief for what has been suffered by the offender,’” the judge said. “But it takes the curious position that in this ‘unusual situation,’ reimbursement is appropriate.”
Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, along with Judges Royce Lamberth and Randolph Moss, are among the D.C. judges who have recently denied similar restitution refund requests from January 6 defendants, Law & Crime reported.
On June 30, Boasberg rejected a request from a Maryland couple seeking the return of roughly $1,000 in restitution. Moss denied a claim from a pardoned former U.S. Marine from New Jersey, while Lamberth turned down Utah defendant John Sullivan.
In her order last week, Judge Chutkan echoed the reasoning of her fellow judges, referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1877 ruling in Knote v. United States. The decision described a pardon as “an act of grace” that does not return “rights or property once vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment.”
“A pardon cannot authorize reimbursement once money has ‘been paid to a party to whom the law has assigned them,’ because the party’s ‘rights . . . have become vested, and are as complete as if they were acquired in any other legal way,’” Chutkan wrote in her order.
Trump’s sweeping pardon of January 6 rioters included Hager, one of more than 1,500 defendants granted clemency since the president began his second term in January.
The Justice Department argued that Hager’s case was unique, along with others whose convictions were similarly “invalidated,” because he wasn’t simply pardoned. Instead, the government took the unusual step of vacating his case entirely while it was still under appeal, the outlet said.
“Here, Hager’s conviction was ‘invalidated’ when the D.C. Circuit vacated it, and thus ‘there is no longer any basis justifying the government’s retaining funds exacted only as a result of that conviction,’” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Dreher.
Hager filed his motion in late February, seeking reimbursement of fines, fees and restitution.
“In Knote, the Supreme Court made clear that ‘a pardoned individual is not ‘entitle[d]’ to payments that have already been deposited into the United States Treasury, absent congressional authorization to withdraw the funds,’” Chutkan concluded. “Therefore, this court lacks the authority to order the Architect of the Capitol to refund Hager’s $570.”
Democrats immediately panned Trump’s decision to grant pardons to most Jan. 6 defendants, while Republicans noted that the Biden Justice Dept. pursued and often obtained outsized convictions for people who were charged with low-level misdemeanors.
Other Jan. 6 defendants were jailed for years without being offered bail or going to trial.