The new leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice has decided that President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 pardon declaration covers both of the criminal cases lodged against Elias Nick Costianes Jr., setting the stage for his release from federal prison eight days after he turned himself in.
The DOJ’s new position on the matter, filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, could have a ripple effect to eventually free at least three other pardoned Jan. 6 defendants — Jeremy Brown, Benjamin Martin, and Daniel Ball — who are still being held in federal prisons despite the president’s pardon actions.
‘He should immediately be released from incarceration.’
“The United States agrees that the President pardoned him, he should be immediately released from custody in connection with this case, his sentence should be stayed, and this Court should resolve his motion on an expedited basis,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bornstein wrote in a filing. “Because the President’s pardon has mooted Mr. Costianes’s appeal, the court should also vacate his judgment of conviction.”
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