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How many of those pardoned from january 6th have been convicted of being in possession of child pornography?
Executive Summary
Two confirmed cases link people pardoned for January 6 to child-sexual-material charges: Kyle Colton has been convicted of receiving child pornography, and David Paul Daniel faces production and possession charges; beyond these, the record is fragmented and unclear. Reporting through mid-2025 shows at least one conviction and at least one ongoing prosecution involving pardoned Jan. 6 defendants, while broader lists of pardoned individuals do not comprehensively document similar convictions, leaving the total number unresolved [1] [2] [3].
1. A named conviction: Sacramento’s Kyle Colton shows the clearest link
Reporting in July 2025 documents that Kyle Travis Colton, pardoned by former President Trump for Jan. 6 involvement, was convicted of receiving child sexual abuse material after investigators found thousands of images and videos spanning 2010–2023. The conviction is specific: prosecutors say Colton downloaded over 2,500 abusive files and a jury found him guilty of at least one count of receipt of child pornography; sentencing exposure could reach decades in prison. Colton’s defense argued the presidential pardon covered January 6-related proceedings and evidence, but prosecutors and courts distinguished the child-pornography conduct as separate from the riot-related offenses, a legal distinction that matters for whether pardons bar unrelated federal prosecutions [1] [4].
2. An active prosecution with serious allegations: David Paul Daniel’s case raises legal questions
In March 2025, reporting highlighted David Paul Daniel, another pardoned Jan. 6 defendant, who faces federal charges of production and possession of child pornography allegedly involving a prepubescent child and a child under 12. Daniel’s attorneys have contended evidence was obtained via warrants tied to January 6 investigations and moved to dismiss on pardon-related grounds; prosecutors oppose that motion, arguing the child-porn allegations are not covered by the pardon because they are distinct criminal conduct. The Daniel matter is ongoing and could set a precedent for how broadly a Jan. 6 pardon can be applied when unrelated crimes are uncovered during riot-related probes [2].
3. Compilations of pardoned persons don’t enumerate child-porn convictions — reporting is uneven
Comprehensive lists of the roughly 1,500 people pardoned or granted clemency in the January 6 proclamation do not uniformly report subsequent convictions for child sexual material. Encyclopedic and summary accounts of the mass pardons note that some pardoned defendants had extensive criminal histories, and that certain pardons cover individuals previously prosecuted for violent or sexual offenses, but these compilations do not provide a definitive count of pardoned persons later convicted of child pornography specifically. That absence of a centralized, authoritative tally means public reporting relies on individual case stories and local prosecution records rather than a single consolidated dataset [5] [3] [6].
4. Different outlets and dates give a consistent core but divergent emphasis
Sources from early 2025 through mid-2025 converge on the same concrete core facts: Colton’s conviction and Daniel’s charges. Reporting dated January through July 2025 documents the legal maneuvers and factual allegations; later encyclopedia-style summaries of the pardon (updated by November 2025) note that some pardoned individuals have subsequent charges including child-pornography but stop short of enumerating them. Journalistic emphasis differs: local outlets focus on individual criminal prosecutions and legal contests over the scope of pardons, while national summaries emphasize the scale and political implications of mass clemency without cataloging subsequent unrelated criminal convictions [2] [1] [3].
5. Bottom line: at least one conviction, at least one pending prosecution, total unknown
Based on available reporting through July–November 2025, the verifiable minimum is one convicted pardoned January 6 defendant (Kyle Colton) and at least one pardoned defendant charged (David Paul Daniel) with child pornography offenses; several accounts mention other troubling criminal histories among pardoned people but do not confirm additional child-porn convictions. The public record as compiled across these sources is incomplete: absence of evidence in summary lists is not evidence of absence, and reliable national tallies have not been published that enumerate how many pardoned individuals have been convicted of possessing child pornography. Future court rulings—especially on pardon scope—will materially affect how many such prosecutions proceed to conviction [1] [2] [3].