Jan. 6 rioter sentenced to life for plotting attack on FBI
A former sailor was sentenced to life prison Wednesday for plotting to bomb an FBI office and assassinating other federal agents following his arrest for the Capitol assault on January 6, 2021.
Edward Kelley, 36, was sentenced in November for several charges relating to his reprisal plot against the FBI office in Knoxville, Tenn. He also developed a “killing list” of various agents of the application of the laws involved in his case on January 6, according to the FEDs.
Kelley was one of the first people who broke into the American Capitol when the Congress tried to certify Donald Trump’s defeat against Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Although Kelley was finally convicted of his actions that day, President Trump pardoned him with all the other defendants in the case shortly after taking office. However, the Ministry of Justice argued that forgiveness did not apply to Kelley’s plot against federal agents.
According to investigators, Kelley and another man, Austin Carter, have developed a list of 36 law enforcement agents they would target for assassination using improvised explosives attached to vehicles and drones. Every 36 were involved in Kelley’s initial arrest on the riot of the Capitol riot and the research by the FBI of his house.
Carter turned around and pleaded guilty to a conspiration of conspiracy, then testified against Kelley. His condemned hearing is scheduled for August 4.
“Carter’s testimony was unequivocal – he had no doubts that, if Kelle and he had not been arrested, the police staff included on Kelley’s list would have been murdered,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
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