President Donald Trump has granted fresh pardons to two Jan. 6 defendants facing charges on other issues. 

Suzanne Kaye, a Jan. 6 defendant, was also sentenced to 18 months in prison for allegedly threatening to shoot FBI agents in social media posts. 

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice stated that on Jan. 31, 2021, the day before Kaye was set to meet with FBI agents regarding a tip that she was at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, she posted videos on social media in which she said she would “shoot” FBI agents if they came to her house. The FBI learned of Kaye’s social media posts on Feb. 8, 2021, and arrested Kaye at her Florida home on Feb. 17, 2021.

A White House official told Fox News Digital that Kaye is prone to stress-induced seizures and suffered one while the jury read its verdict in 2023. The official said that the case was one of disfavored political speech, which is protected under the First Amendment.

TRUMP PARDONS NEARLY ALL JAN. 6 DEFENDANTS ON INAUGURATION DAY

U.S. Special Attorney Ed Martin posted about the pardon on Saturday, thanking Trump in a post on X. 

“The Biden DOJ targeted Suzanne Kaye for social media posts — and she was sentenced to 18 months in federal lock up. President Trump is unwinding the damage done by Biden’s DOJ weaponization, so the healing can begin,” Martin wrote.

Jan. 6 defendant Daniel Wilson remained incarcerated after Trump pardoned convicted rioters because he pleaded guilty to firearms charges. A White House official told Fox News Digital that the president made the decision to grant Wilson an additional pardon because the firearms were discovered during a search of Wilson’s home related to the Capitol riot.

Despite being included in the sweeping pardon granted to Jan. 6 defendants by Trump on Jan. 20, 2025, Wilson remained incarcerated due to the firearms charge and was set to be released in 2028. Prior to his sentencing on Jan. 6-related charges, for which he received five years in prison, Wilson pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of an unregistered firearm.

While the Trump administration Justice Department initially said that the firearm charge should not count under the Jan. 6 pardon, it later reversed course, citing “further clarity,” without going into details about what caused the shift.

TRUMP ISSUES SWEEPING PARDONS FOR 2020 ELECTION ALLIES — WHAT THE MOVE REALLY MEANS

In his original pardon, Trump declared that pursuant to his authority under Article II, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, he was commuting the sentences of those “convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” That pardon included Wilson’s Jan. 6 charges, but not the firearms-related ones.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee involved in Wilson’s case, rejected the expanded definition of what exactly Trump was pardoning, saying it stretched the bounds of the order too far. In her opinion, Friedrich criticized the use of the phrase “related to” from Trump’s original pardon to expand its meaning.

“The surrounding text of the pardon makes clear that ‘related to’ denotes a specific factual relationship between the conduct underlying a given offense and what took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Friedrich wrote in her opinion.

An appeals court later supported her objections, saying that Wilson had to remain behind bars during the appeal process.

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Wilson previously identified himself as a member of the Oath Keepers and the Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers militia, according to Politico.

“Dan Wilson is a good man. After more than 7 months of unjustified imprisonment, he is relieved to be home with his loved ones,” Wilson’s attorneys, George Pallas and Carol Stewart, told Politico in a statement. “This act of mercy not only restores his freedom but also shines a light on the overreach that has divided this nation.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Justice Department and Wilson’s legal team for comment.

When millions of European immigrants came to the United States in the 19th century only to be scorned by mainstream society, it was the Catholic Church that embraced them, taught that keeping the customs of one’s native lands was not bad and created systems of mutual aid and education for the newcomers that didn’t rely on the government.

The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, an Irish American Catholic, showed that the U.S. was ready to expand its definition of who could become president. Labor organizers like Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day and Mother Jones pushed for the dignity of workers while frequently citing the woke words of Jesus — the Sermon of the Mount and the Beatitudes among the wokest — as the fuel for their spiritual fire.

Catholicism is the faith I was baptized in, the one I embraced as a teen and that’s the bedrock for my moral code of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. My work desk covered with statues and devotional cards of Jesus, Mary and the saints is a physical testament to this.

But I’m also one of the 72% of U.S. Catholics that a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year found don’t attend weekly Mass, which we’re obligated to do.

I stopped going early on in my adulthood because the Church became something I didn’t recognize.

The bishops and cardinals who preached we should follow Jesus’ admonition we should tend to the least among us presided over a child sex abuse scandal in the 1990s and 2000s that cost parishioners billions of dollars in legal settlements and their ethical high ground. The obsession that too many of those same church leaders had over abortion and homosexuality — which Christ never talked about — over social justice matters during the Obama administration left me disappointed. Their continual condemnation of pro-choice Catholic Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for taking Communion while staying silent about Donald Trump’s constant violations of the Ten Commandments was rank hypocrisy.

The Pew Research Center found 55% of my fellow faithful voted for Trump. Key Catholics have blessed Trump’s uglier tendencies: A majority of them rules over our revanchist Supreme Court while the president’s team features a vice president who’s a convert and a rogue’s gallery of influential insiders that bear surnames from previous generations of Catholic diasporas — Kennedy, Rubio, Bovino, Homan among the worst of the worst.

Yet I remain a Catholic because you shouldn’t turn your back so easily on institutions that formed you and you don’t cede your identity to heretics. The election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American to head the Holy See, to succeed Pope Francis stirred in me the sense that things might change for the better as our country worsens.

Now, without naming him, the U.S. Catholic hierarchy has rebuked Trump on his signature issue and one close to my heart in a way that shows my hope hasn’t been in vain.

This week the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a so-called “special message” to blast Trump’s deportation Leviathan, decrying its “vilification of immigrants” “the, indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and how hundreds of thousands of residents have “arbitrarily lost their legal status.” Citing passages from across the Bible — the Gospel, the Old Testament, the Letters of Paul — to argue for the human worth of the undocumented and the holy mandate that we must care about them, it was the first time since 2013 that American bishops collectively authored such a statement.

Even as a majority of U.S. Catholics have gone MAGA, support for the special message was overwhelming: 216 bishops voted in favor, 5 against, and there were 3 abstentions. Their missive even concluded with a shout-out to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the brown, pregnant apparition of the Virgin Mary who’s the patroness of the Americas for Catholics.

Talk about someone who would get deported if la migra saw Her on the street.

The cruelty this administration has shown throughout its deportation campaign — families torn apart as easily as the Constitution; U.S. citizens detained; wanton federal violence that a federal judge in Chicago described as “shock[ing] the conscience” — has become one of the most pressing moral issues of our times. The call by Catholic bishops to oppose this wrong is important — so like a voice crying in the wilderness, the church must set an example for the rest of the country to follow.

This example already is being set in parishes across Southern California.

Priests and deacons have marched at rallies and prayed for those detained and deported from Orange County to downtown L.A. and beyond. Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights has let local activists stage know-your-rights workshops since Trump won last November. While L.A archbishop José H. Gomez and Diocese of Orange bishop Kevin Vann, the two most senior Catholic prelates in the region, have spoken out forcefully against immigration raids, some of their local brother bishops have pushed harder.

Diocese of San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas has allowed Catholics who are afraid of la migra to skip Mass since July after immigration agents detained migrants on church property, arguing “such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience” for his flock. In San Diego, Bishop Michael Pham — who’s been in his seat for only four months — helped launch a program encouraging religious leaders to accompany migrants to immigration court to bear witness to the injustices inside and has participated himself.

Expect to hear gnashing of the teeth from the conservative side of church pews about how everyone should respect the rule of law and to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s as if there ever was a Pope Donald. Already, Trump border czar Tom Homan has cried that the bishops are “wrong” for issuing their pro-immigrant letter and suggested they focus on “fixing the Catholic Church.”

But Homan’s dismissal and that of his fellow travelers doesn’t make the bishop’s admonition against Trump’s policies any more prophetic. The president’s immigration dictates are out of Herod — no less an authority than Pope Leo described them in October as “inhuman,” told a delegation of American bishops that “the church cannot remain silent” on those outrages and stated in a separate speech that such abuse was “not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state.”

The Catholic Church never will be as progressive as some want it to be. Even as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released its message, the group elected as its next president Diocese of Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, whose public politics have so far mostly aligned with those of his deep-red state. But on the issue of dignity for immigrants during the Trump era, U.S. bishops have been on the right side of history — and God. They criticized Trump’s Muslim ban and his move to separate undocumented parents from their children during his first administration and have kept a watch on his attempt to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows some people who came to this country as children to legally remain in the U.S.

We’re about to enter the Christmas season, a holiday based on the story of a poor family seeking shelter in an era when their kind was rejected by the powers that be and ultimately had to flee home. It’s the story of the United States as well, one too many Americans have forsaken and that Trump wants all of us to forget.

May Catholics remind their fellow Americans anew of how powerful and righteous standing up for the stranger is.

The FBI was secretly listening last year when a high-ranking advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom unleashed a stream of profanities as she vented about a public records request from an unnamed individual.

“Double f— her!” said Dana Williamson, Newsom’s chief of staff, repeating the f word throughout the conversation. She also called another person an “a—,” according to federal court documents made public this week.

Before Wednesday, few people outside of California’s political bubble likely knew Williamson’s name.

Now she’s engulfed in a scandal involving political consultants and illicit payments that threatens to haunt her former boss, Newsom, as he challenges President Trump and looks toward the 2028 presidential race.

A smart and savvy negotiator who bridged Sacramento’s overlapping worlds of government, business and labor, Williamson is also someone who picked unnecessary fights and launched cruel missives, political consultants and friends said this week.

Federal agents arrested Williamson Wednesday at her home in Carmichael, a Sacramento suburb. Her lawyer, former U.S. Atty. McGregor Scott, was furious about how the arrest was handled, saying she was seriously ill and in need of a liver transplant.

Federal prosecutors allege that she conspired to funnel money out of one of her one-time client’s state campaign accounts for bogus services, and falsified documents related to her COVID loan.

She also is accused of lying on her tax returns about luxury items and services, including a $150,000 birthday trip to Mexico, that she allegedly sought to pass off as business expenses, according to the government.

Williamson, who pleaded not guilty to the charges this week, appeared in a courtroom in Sacramento. She appeared solemn during the hearing, at one point reportedly lifting her cuffed hand to wipe away a tear, and left without talking to reporters.

Court documents filed this week paint an image of both a conniving player and a fragile individual. “I’m scared,” she wrote in a February 2022 text message to a colleague as they discussed the alleged money-laundering scheme, which was allegedly in the early planning stages.

Public affairs consultant Steven Maviglio has known her since the two worked in President Clinton’s administration — and then later the administration of Gov. Gray Davis. He is now trying to put together a legal defense fund for her.

He described Williamson as a “no nonsense, no BS, get it done” person who was “straight-talking, sometimes to the point of offensive to people.”

She regularly dropped f-bombs, he added.

In another recording captured by the FBI, Williamson joined two colleagues last year in a restaurant near the state Capitol in Sacramento. The government was asking questions about money she received through her COVID loan.

She complained about the “f—” drama and said her Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan got “popped” — before adding another swear word. According to federal officials, she created false contracts in an attempt to show the COVID money was appropriately used.

There is little sympathy from her detractors. Gil Duran, the former press secretary to Gov. Jerry Brown, who worked alongside Williamson, likened her to a “mafia boss” in an interview with CNN. She also has numerous defenders in Sacramento, many of them women, who view her as a tough and inspiring figure.

The details in the federal filings sent shock waves beyond Sacramento and the state Capitol this week.

“I’m stunned about the allegation and find it hard to believe,” said Alison Gaulden, who supervised Williamson when she worked as an associate vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte from 2002 to 2004.

Gaulden described her as “incredibly bright and well versed in policy. I’ve admired how she grew in her career.”

Williamson, who grew up in Santa Rosa, moved between the private and public sectors, and was employed by three governors, Davis, Jerry Brown and Newsom.

At Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), she worked alongside two other women who would be remarkably influential in her life: Nancy McFadden, the late advisor to Brown and Alexis Podesta, a longtime California political insider who also appears in the federal court documents filed this week.

Podesta is the person identified as “Co-Conspirator 2,” but has not been charged and is cooperating with investigators, according to her attorney.

Williamson was hired as a senior advisor for Brown and was later promoted to Cabinet secretary.

While working for Brown, Williamson publicly advocated for children’s health, testifying in favor of legislation that would eliminate the state’s personal-belief exemption for childhood vaccines. She said the issue was meaningful to her because she was a mother of four.

“Usually, staff doesn’t speak on bills, the great thing about the governor is that he respects that we are people first,” Williamson told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This was important to me.”

Business advocates appreciated her direct approach when she worked for Brown.

“She was very straightforward, she was a good person to work with,” said Stuart Waldman, president of Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. He said he hadn’t dealt with her in years.

She flip-flopped between private and government work, drawing criticism from groups like Consumer Watchdog for her “revolving door” career.

In one episode, she was allegedly seen negotiating for her energy clients in Brown’s office as the state hammered out details over a grid deal, drawing outrage from the watchdog group.

She started her own government relations firm, Grace Public Affairs, which handled an array of campaigns, including the online sports betting initiative Proposition 27, which appeared on the 2022 ballot, but failed to pass.

Her clients included California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, and former Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, whose campaign fund was allegedly raided by Williamson, and others.

By 2017, she had a close group of female friends, who had also risen to the top of their professions. But to those who weren’t in her inner circle, she was all elbows, one political insider said this week.

At the California Democratic Party headquarters in downtown Sacramento, a bronze statue of Williamson’s then-5-year-old daughter was installed as part of a campaign to promote female empowerment following Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss.

Those behind the statue included Williamson’s friends Robin Swanson, a Democratic communications consultant, and Angie Tate, then a chief fundraiser for the California Democratic Party.

The installation was intended to mimic the “Fearless Girl” statue at New York’s Wall Street, which shows a 4-foot young woman looking defiantly at the famous charging bull statue.

In 2022, Newsom’s office announced Williamson was joining his office as chief of staff. Though the two weren’t particularly close when she joined, she quickly became part of his inner circle, Politico reported at the time.

Anthony York, Newsom’s former communications director and a former L.A. Times reporter, told Politico at the time that Williamson was not intimidated by the governor’s celebrity status. “She gives zero f—s, which is part of what makes her so great,” York said.

During her time in Newsom’s office, she worked with former Senate leader Darrell Steinberg on the successful passage of Proposition 1, which borrows billions of dollars for mental health services, and was a personal issue for her family.

“I had a particularly tough experience with my husband that I learned a lot from… when the incident happened with him, I learned about all the holes in the system,” she told KQED.

She moved from Elk Grove last year to Carmichael, purchasing a home for $1.695 million, according to property records. The records show her linked to several homes in Elk Grove, including one that went into foreclosure in 2012.

Williamson would send off combative messages, including social media posts or texts, often at night. Among her targets: California Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez and U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin), whom she called an “entertaining idiot” on X.

She took aim at former Assemblymember Kevin McCarty during his campaign last year for Sacramento mayor. She called him a “devil” on X and urged others not to vote for him, before her comment was taken down a few days later.

Newsom placed Williamson on leave when she informed him last year she was under criminal investigation. Her last day in office was in November 2024. At the time, the governor said in a statement that “her insight, tenacity, and big heart will be missed.”

This week, a spokesperson for the governor struck a different tone: “Ms. Williamson no longer serves in this administration. While we are still learning details of the allegations, the Governor expects all public servants to uphold the highest standards of integrity.”