“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” Wise testified. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”
He said the terms Nazi and Gestapo came to mind because of law enforcement training he had received from the Anti-Defamation League and past visits to Holocaust museums.
A federal prosecutor pressed Wise about his rant against police.
“You yelled, ‘shame on you, shame on you?'” Assistant U.S. Attorney Taylor Fontan asked.
“I did,” Wise replied.
“And you meant it or you wouldn’t have said, right?” Fontan asked.
“I assume yes,” Wise said.
“And you meant ‘Kill ’em, kill ’em, kill ’em, get ’em, get ’em,’ right?” Fontan asked.
“No,” Wise said. “I think that was just an angry reaction.”
“OK. So you meant it 10 seconds before and then all of a sudden you didn’t mean it, right?” Fontan said.
“No,” Wise testified. “I don’t think I meant kill ’em, I don’t want people to die.”
Wise did not personally assault police, though he that testified he would have been “morally justified” if he had tried to stop police from using what he viewed as excessive force on Jan. 6.
He described his decision to enter the Capitol as “irrational” and acknowledged during cross-examination that “it was probably obvious” he wasn’t supposed to go into the building.
Both the defense and prosecution had completed closing arguments in the case when Trump took office on Jan. 20 and ordered the case dismissed, referring to the Capitol riot prosecutions as a “grave national injustice.”
The day after the inauguration, federal Judge Randolph D. Moss formally dismissed Wise’s case.
It’s unclear what precise role Wise is now playing at the Department of Justice.
According to email records from multiple sources viewed by NPR, Wise holds the title of senior adviser in the office of the deputy attorney general and has been working on internal reviews of alleged “weaponization” of law enforcement. In its statement, the Justice Department did not respond to NPR’s questions about Wise.
Meanwhile, Trump appointed conservative activist Ed Martin as U.S. pardon attorney and director of the administration’s new “Weaponization Working Group.” Attorney General Pam Bondi tasked the group with reviewing “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” related to the Capitol attack.
Before joining the administration, Martin served on the board of a nonprofit group that financially supported Jan. 6 defendants and their families. In interviews, he has suggested that violence against police on Jan. 6 may have been justified because the events were “staged” — a conspiracy theory not backed by credible evidence.
“I’m not saying if you hit a cop, you can get excused. I’m not saying that,” Martin said in 2024. “Although, I am saying the more we find out about how staged and managed this was, the more we have to have less judgment on somebody who hits a cop.”
“I’ve seen people hit a cop and that doesn’t make it the end of the world,” Martin added.
The hiring of a former Jan. 6 criminal defendant at the nation’s top law enforcement agency is just the latest example of how the Trump administration has attempted to rewrite the history of the Capitol riot.
“The Department of Justice could have hired anyone,” said Rosen. “They chose someone who was alleged and credibly alleged to have participated in a riot, encouraging other rioters to kill police officers protecting the Capitol.”
While the White House has portrayed itself as a firm advocate of law enforcement, the administration’s actions have made clear that its notion of “Back the Blue” has a Jan. 6 exception.
“The hypocrisy is astounding,” said Rosen.
Just hours after his inauguration, Trump granted clemency to all of the more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, including the most violent.
Most Jan. 6 defendants received “full, complete and unconditional” pardons. Some had prior criminal records or pending charges for rape, manslaughter, domestic violence, drug trafficking, possession of child sexual abuse material and other crimes.
Fourteen defendants, all of whom were linked to the extremist groups the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, received commutations, releasing them from prison though not erasing their felony convictions from their records.
All of the defendants facing ongoing cases — like Wise — had their charges dismissed. Active investigations into assaults on police were closed.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray referred to the Jan. 6 attack as an act of domestic terrorism. The current FBI director, Kash Patel, previously helped produce a song performed by Jan. 6 rioters in jail, including some who violently assaulted police.
Two former Jan. 6 defendants, one of whom smashed a Capitol window with a tomahawk and was convicted of assaulting police, received a White House tour.
The Trump administration paid nearly $5 million to settle a wrongful death suit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, a Jan. 6 rioter who was shot and killed by police while trying to breach a barricaded door by the House chamber. The Department of Justice had previously determined that the shooting was justified.
The administration fired dozens of career prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Rosen himself was demoted before he decided to leave the government to join the firm Rogers Joseph O’Donnell.
After Martin joined the government, he said that former Jan. 6 defendants like Wise deserve “restitution.”
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