A man who received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump after threatening to shoot then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the January 6 attack on the Capitol is back in custody.
Cleveland Meredith, a Georgia man who was sentenced to 28 months in prison in 2021 for his threats against Pelosi, was arrested Monday after allegedly threatening to execute federal judges who handled January 6 cases, according to Politico.
The threat was reportedly posted on Facebook in April. Its message left little room for interpretation.
“ALL J6 Federal JUDGES will be EXECUTED!” the post stated, according to a federal affidavit.
An FBI agent investigating Meredith’s online activity described him as having a “history of violent online rhetoric,” according to the affidavit.
Meredith had been out of prison since 2022, according to The New Yorker. His latest arrest raises fresh questions about the risks posed by individuals who received clemency after making violent threats tied to the January 6 attack.
And Meredith’s history was hardly limited to angry posts online.
When authorities arrested him in Washington in January 2021, prosecutors said he had an alarming stockpile of weapons and ammunition: a 9 mm semi-automatic firearm, an assault-style rifle equipped with a telescopic sight, approximately 2,500 rounds of ammunition, and multiple large-capacity ammunition feeding devices.
That was the man Trump later pardoned.
Now, after allegedly threatening to kill federal judges, Meredith is facing another arrest. The pardon erased his federal conviction’s punishment; it did not erase the history that led to it—or prevent new allegations from emerging.
