Amid a wave of lawsuits filed by pardoned Jan. 6 riot defendants against the federal government, some House Democrats are introducing legislation Wednesday to block any further taxpayer money from being awarded to participants in the Capitol siege, after at least one financial settlement.
The legislation is sponsored by Rep. Deborah Ross, a North Carolina Democrat who raised concerns at a hearing in January about the attempts by pardoned rioters to secure awards or restitution from their cases.
“The pardons have re-traumatized the victims,” Ross said at a hearing last month. Ross also noted that President Trump’s blanket clemency of riot defendants also absolved the attackers from having to pay restitution for the millions of dollars in damages they caused during the Insurrection.
Ross’ new bill in the House would prohibit the distribution of taxpayer money for any “January 6th compensation fund” and ban any further refund of damage payments made by convicted Capitol rioters.
“We now have the Proud Boys trying to take people’s tax dollars and act like they were the victims on Jan. 6, which we know is patently false,” Ross told CBS News.
“We have got to make it very clear that Congress does not think these insurrectionists need to be rewarded for trying to overturn an election and for defacing property and for injuring Capitol police officers,” she said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Ross’ legislation is similar to separate Senate legislation introduced in January by Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat whose committee has oversight over U.S. Capitol Police and Capitol grounds.
Mark McCloskey, an attorney whose social media page says he is “championing the cause of J6 compensation,” posted on his X feed in August: “To all the J6 political prisoners out there — I’m doing everything I can to [expedite] the establishment of a claims resolution procedure so we can get you back on your feet and get you some real justice.”
“I won’t stop fighting and I will never back down,” he wrote.
The Trump administration has already approved at least one civil settlement in connection with the mob that overran the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. The Justice Department signed off on an approximately $5 million settlement to the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while she breached a smashed window into the House Speaker’s Lobby.
At a Jan. 6, 2026 hearing held by congressional Democrats, members of Congress and a former Capitol riot prosecutor slammed proposals for Jan. 6 “reparations” for convicted rioters. U.S. Capitol Police officer Winston Pingeon, who responded to the riot, testified that the more than 140 police officers injured in the Capitol siege have not received a special “compensation fund” or reparations for their losses. Pingeon told the panel, “I don’t know of any officer who has received any kind of compensation for what they sacrificed on Jan. 6.”
Over the past year, a series of riot defendants have formally requested taxpayer-funded reimbursements of the court-ordered restitution payments and fines they paid as part of their plea agreements or criminal sentences.
Court filings reviewed by CBS News said total damages eclipsed $3 million. An estimate produced by Congress said only 15% of those damages were actually paid before Mr. Trump issued the pardons.
The legislation specifies, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds shall be disbursed from the United States Treasury to refund any court-ordered compensation, including restitution, fines, or special assessments, paid by any individual convicted for involvement in the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, including any individual so convicted and subsequently pardoned.”
Ross’ legislation has already secured the support of the top House Democrats on the two committees with oversight of the matter, the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on House Administration.
House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle of New York said in a statement, “Criminals who brutally assaulted law enforcement to prevent the peaceful transfer of power are not entitled to taxpayer-funded compensation,” and dhe added, that “the American people’s money must never be used to reward political violence, incentivize future attacks, or rewrite history.”
