Jan. 6 Defendant Pardoned by Trump Charged With Threatening To Kill Judges - Newsweek
A man pardoned by President Donald Trump after being charged following the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection has been charged with making threats to execute federal judges.
According to an FBI affidavit filed on October 29, Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr. is accused of posting on Facebook in April: "ALL J6 Federal JUDGES will be EXECUTED!"
The FBI alleges Meredith made the threat from Georgia against officials in Washington, D.C., and he has been charged with interstate communication of threats, a federal felony.
The affidavit noted that Meredith had previously been interviewed by FBI agents on two occasions in 2024 and 2025 over social media posts that appeared to be threatening in nature.
Meredith was sentenced to 28 months in prison in 2021 over a threat to shoot then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi in the head. He later received a presidential pardon, along with more than 1,500 others charged in connection with the Capitol attack.
Meredith traveled to D.C. to attend pro-Trump rallies on January 6, 2021 with a cache of guns and ammunition, but his arrival was delayed by car issues.
He reached D.C. a day after the Capitol riot, and while there texted a family member in Georgia that he was considering going to Pelosi's speech and "putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV."
The relative alerted his mother to his comments, who then contacted the FBI, leading to his arrest at a D.C. hotel. He pleaded guilty in 2021 to interstate communication of threats.
Meredith is the latest recipient of Trump’s sweeping January 6 pardons to find themselves in legal trouble again. Nearly 100 others have been arrested, charged or convicted of separate crimes since the Capitol attack.
A profile of Meredith by The New Yorker in 2025 found that he had continued posting provocative and threatening messages on social media after receiving his pardon, showing little sign of having moderated his rhetoric.
His posts included demands for compensation from people he blamed for his imprisonment, including his family members, who he described as "BRAINWASHED TRAITORS."
Judges who presided over cases relating to the January 6 attack or other cases involving Trump have reported facing death threats and intimidation. One woman pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw Trump's federal election-interference case.
Trump has also publicly criticized the judges involved in January 6 prosecutions.
"They’ve been treated very unfair," he said about the convicted rioters in 2025 when announcing his pardons. "The judges have been absolutely brutal. The prosecutors have been brutal. And nobody’s ever treated people in this country like that."
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Tony Phillips.
