(NEW YORK) — An upstate New York man who was pardoned by President Donald Trump for his actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 allegedly threatened to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York State Police said.
Christopher Moynihan, 34, of Clinton, was arrested Saturday and charged with making a terroristic threat, police said. He is the first pardoned Capitol rioter to be arrested over alleged political violence.
He appeared in the Town of Clinton Court where he was remanded to the Dutchess County Justice and Transition Center in lieu of $10,000 cash bail, police said.
He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Dutchess County State Supreme Court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether he had hired a lawyer.
Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement Tuesday that he is “grateful to state and federal law enforcement for their swift and decisive action to apprehend a dangerous individual who made a credible death threat against me with every intention to carry it out.”
Moynihan was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding in 2022 after he broke through a security perimeter and entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors said he entered the Senate Gallery and paged through a notebook on top of a senator’s desk and took photos with his cellphone. During the riot he said, “There’s got to be something in here we can f—ing use against these —-bags,” according to prosecutors. Court filings from when he was charged included screenshots from a video showing Moynihan in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Moynihan was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in February 2023 before he and more than 1,500 others who had been convicted or otherwise charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot received a pardon hours after Trump took office.
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