Jan. 6 Defendant Tells Judge He Isn't Worried Because Trump Will 'Be Back In Office'

A man accused of firing a gun outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, told a federal judge on Monday that he had “nothing to worry about” because Donald Trump was “going to be back in office in six months.”

John Banuelos made the comment during his arraignment in Washington, D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan had, only moments earlier, advised Banuelos to be careful about what he said in court, according to CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane, who attended the hearing.

Earlier during the arraignment, Banuelos said he didn’t trust the public defender who was representing him. He called the lawyer a “public pretender” and said “they’re f**king with me,” MacFarlane reported.

Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has repeatedly said he supports freeing all or most Jan. 6 rioters.

He has at times qualified the statement, saying he would pardon “many” or a “large portion” of the rioters. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” he said in May 2023. But other times, he has unconditionally referred to freeing all rioters: “Start treating the January 6th Protestors fairly,” he said in a statement in November 2022. “Let them all go now!”

“As President Trump has promised, he will pardon January 6th protestors who are wrongfully imprisoned by Crooked Joe Biden’s Justice Department, and those decisions will be determined on a case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told NBC News in April.

Banuelos appeared via video Monday from a jail in Chicago, where he has been held since his arrest in March . He told Chutkan he feared for his life in Washington and asked the judge why he was being held