Left: Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before departing Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 6, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, Pool). Right: A protester is detained by federal agents near the scene where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Minneapolis (AP Photo/Adam Gray).
As controversies involving federal immigration agents pile up in multiple cities, congressional investigators are demanding to know whether the Trump administration has hired anyone who was previously pardoned for taking part in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a four-page letter on Monday, House Judiciary Democrats put the question directly – and in plain terms – to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
"How many pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have been hired by your respective departments?" the letter begins.
In the letter, Maryland Rep. and ranking member Jamie Raskin details how some in the orbit of Jan. 6 have since come to work for the DOJ itself in high-profile positions. Among such employees are pardoned ex-FBI supervisor Jared Wise, who now serves as senior adviser in the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Raskin also makes reference to "J6 enthusiast and defense counsel" Ed Martin, who currently serves as Associate Deputy Attorney General and the head of the DOJ's "Weaponization Working Group."
Still, those references – to Wise and Martin – merely preface Raskin's overarching concern.
"We know that some participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have been rewarded with high-ranking positions in the Department of Justice," the congressman said in a press release. "However, it remains unclear how many more have been invited to join the ranks of this Administration, including among the masked Department of Homeland Security agents and officers that have dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, shot, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike in communities around the country."
The oversight committee member accuses DHS of explicitly aiming to recruit members of right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters. Several members, and some leaders, of each group were present during the pro-Donald Trump riots at the national legislative seat of government that day.
And there is one federal immigration agency in particular targeting these one-time rioters, Raskin suggests.
"For its part, DHS seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists," the letter reads. "It uses white nationalist 'dog whistles' in its recruitment campaign for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that appear aimed at stirring members of extremist militias."
The letter suggests former Jan. 6 defendants might be hiding, quite literally, behind the masks ICE agents wear. In effect, the letter combines the often-criticized masking conventions of the unpopular agency with lingering concerns over the Jan. 6 riots.
"Unique among all law enforcement agencies and all branches of the armed services, ICE agents conceal their identities, wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms," Raskin writes. "Why is that? Why do National Guard members, state, county, and local police officers, and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all routinely work unmasked while ICE agents work masked?"
The letter continues to accuse "these masked DHS agents and officers" of having "terrorized communities" and notes that "more than 170 U.S. citizens" have been detained amid the government's immigration crackdowns.
Raskin also includes a laundry list of complaints over some of those aforementioned actions.
"DHS officials kneeled on the neck of a protester, forced a family whose home they wrongfully raided to stand in the rain in their underwear in the middle of the night, detained and battered multiple pregnant women at prenatal checkups and their places of work, and even brought along a 'full camera crew production' for Secretary Noem to have her hair and makeup done so she could be photographed watching a family's home get raided," the letter continues.
Raskin also mentions the recent killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The letter heaps opprobrium on ICE, at length [emphasis in original]:
And that's just what DHS has done to Americans. In the last year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been stopped, detained, and deported on the basis of little more than their skin color, appearance, job, or accent. At the hands of ICE and other immigration officials, these people have been shot, entrapped, denied medical care and access to counsel, and physically and sexually abused.
"Who is hiding behind these masks?" Raskin asks. "How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration."
To that end, the letter requests all "records, documents, memos, and internal communications regarding the solicitation and hiring of anyone charged or investigated for actions in connection to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol."