Trump Freed A Jan. 6 Defendant Charged With Assaulting Police. Doj Had Him Arrested Again On A Gun Charge.

A Jan. 6 defendant whose felony assault charges were dismissed a day earlier was arrested Wednesday on federal gun charges that have been pending for nearly two years in Florida.

Daniel Ball, one of the hundreds charged with violence on Jan. 6, 2021, aimed at police, was among the members of the mob whose charges were dismissed at the behest of President Donald Trump. Trump on Monday pardoned more than 1,000 people who stormed the Capitol that day and ordered the Justice Department to drop hundreds of pending cases.

Ball was being held in pretrial detention in Washington, D.C., because of what a magistrate judge described as “some of the most violent and serious offenses of any of the charges being brought against participants in the January 6 events.”

Among them, Ball is charged with hurling an “explosive device” into the packed Lower West Terrace tunnel of the Capitol, the scene of some of the most egregious violence against police that day.

“The explosion allegedly disoriented officers and caused hearing loss—which for some of the officers lasted months,” Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather noted. “Defendant also allegedly threw a large piece of wood into the line of officers protecting the Capitol.”

Ball’s charges were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Tuesday after Trump’s directive.

But Ball’s charges for being a felon in possession of a firearm remained pending and unconnected to his Jan. 6 case. According to that indictment, Ball has previously been convicted of domestic violence battery by strangulation in June 2017, resisting law enforcement with violence and battery of a law enforcement officer in October 2021.

It’s unclear if U.S. marshals executed the arrest warrant on Ball prior to his release on the Jan. 6 charges. However, it’s the first docketed federal criminal case in Washington since Trump’s inauguration.