WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump supporter who, federal law enforcement officials, say plotted to kill FBI special agents investigating him on Jan. 6 charges appears to have been armed with a gun when he became the fourth rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol, federal prosecutors said at trial on Tuesday.
Edward Kelley, of Tennessee, is one of just a handful of Jan. 6 suspects who are still being held in pre-trial custody, meaning that they haven’t yet been convicted of a crime. Kelley was originally freed pending trial on his Jan. 6 charges but was then re-arrested in an alleged murder plot in December 2022.
He and co-defendant Austin Carter plotted “to murder employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” in December 2022, months after Kelley’s arrest on Jan. 6 charges, Carter admitted in a plea agreement. Kelley is set to go to trial in that case in a federal court in Tennessee on Nov. 18, with a pretrial conference scheduled to take place next week, on Nov. 7.
This week, Kelley was in federal court in Washington, facing an array of charges in connection with his original Jan. 6 conduct: civil disorder; obstruction of an official proceeding; assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; destruction of government property; and a variety of misdemeanors.
His defense team did not put forth any witnesses during his trial, and Kelley himself declined to testify.
Kelley is an anti-abortion activist and he wore a sweatshirt reading TCAPP, standing for “The Church At Planned Parenthood,” when he stormed the Capitol, according to the FBI.
Prosecutors presented evidence Tuesday that Kelley may have been armed on Jan. 6. If true, he would not be alone. Conservative media figures and Trump himself have said — falsely — that the mob was unarmed. In fact, several rioters were armed with guns, which contributed to their prison sentences, including two rioters at the spear of the mob that breached a police line near the top of the stairs on the west side of the Capitol. Another pro-Trump rioter, whom NBC News identified as John Emanuel Banuelos, was seen on video firing a gun into the air outside the Capitol that day. He was charged with doing so this year and ordered held pretrial.
The gun allegation is not central to the charges against Kelley, but prosecutors provided strong evidence that Kelley was at least wearing an inside waistband gun holster that is meant to conceal the bottom of a weapon in someone’s pants.
FBI Special Agent Jessi Mann demonstrated how the gun holster works during her testimony on Tuesday, using a prop weapon to show how the barrel of the weapon would be concealed inside pants and the handle of the weapon could be covered up with a sweatshirt like the one that Kelley was wearing. While prosecutors did not present a clear photo of the handle of a weapon slipping out from beneath Kelley’s sweatshirt, Mann testified that the weapon’s “printing,” meaning the outline of the weapon, could be seen in photos of Kelley during the attack. The clip on the holster can be seen in photos, grasping onto Kelley’s belt, Mann said.
Prosecutors also introduced a clear shot of the ammo pack that Kelley appeared to be wearing on his left hip, and Mann testified that Kelley was observed to be right-handed: that’s how he signed paperwork and that’s where he used to wear his weapon, she said.
Mann also testified on Tuesday that Kelley had purchased boxes of ammunition and gas masks in the days leading up to the attack and that the FBI had seized similar clothing to what he wore on Jan. 6 from his residence during a search. Online, Kelley used an encrypted email with the handle “chaos_continues” to make some of his purchases, Mann testified.
Prosecutors presented a number of witnesses in the bench trial before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. They include Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, a Black man who was chased up the stairs near the Senate chamber on Jan. 6 by the overwhelmingly white mob, which included members bearing Confederate flags.
Kelley was at the front of the mob and was seen pointing at Goodman just before the mob went up the stairs, but it was difficult to determine what, if anything, Kelley said to Goodman because of the respirator he was wearing, according to prosecutors. Once he made it inside the Senate chamber, Mann testified, he snapped at least two selfies of him overlooking the dais where Vice President Mike Pence had been seated just moments earlier, and the table where the Electoral College ballots were kept before officials dashed them off the safety.
During the attack, prosecutors said, Kelley urged his wife to download Signal, an encrypted app, when she asked how things were going in Washington and wrote that she didn’t believe the “fake news,” borrowing a Trump phrase.
The month after the attack, Mann testified, he discussed a Time magazine story titled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election” with his family members and even printed out a copy of the story and hung it on his refrigerator.
“The rioters had come for Congress, and they would not stop until they got the ballots,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick C. Holvey told the judge during closing arguments on Tuesday, adding that someone needed to be held accountable for breaching the Capitol for the first time since the British redcoats did in 1814, during the War of 1812.
More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and prosecutors have secured more than 1,100 convictions. Over 600 defendants have been sentenced to periods of incarceration ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison.
