Overview

• On July 3, 2025, a Tennessee jury sentenced 36-year-old Edward Kelley to life in prison for plotting to assassinate federal agents and bomb the FBI office in Knoxville, Tennessee.
• Kelley was convicted in November 2024 on three federal charges, including conspiracy to murder law enforcement officers involved in the January 6 investigation.
• Prosecutors presented evidence that Kelley maintained a blacklist of FBI agents and planned the attack with improvised explosive devices nearly two years after the Capitol assault.
• President Trump granted Kelley clemency on January 20, 2025, alongside pardons for about 1,250 other January 6 defendants, but Kelley’s December 2022 crimes were deemed beyond the pardon’s scope.
• The case underscores judicial limits on executive clemency as courts establish a temporal boundary that excludes criminal acts committed after the insurrection.