It hasn’t taken Daniel Charles Ball very long to find himself on the wrong side of the law again. Within 24 hours of receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, the Florida resident was back in handcuffs once again.
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Ball played a prominent role in the January 6th riots. At the start of 2021, thousands of MAGA enthusiasts stormed the Capitol Building in Washington DC, causing abject chaos. The insurrection attempt lasted for hours before eventually being quelled.
The 39-year-old was set to stand trial for setting off an explosive device at the scene. Rather than being someone ‘caught up in the moment’, Ball was also indicted for ‘assaulting officers’ and ‘engaging in acts of physical violence’.
In total, he was facing 12 federal felony charges. But a legal hearing for his case was delayed in October, before being wiped from the slate entirely this week. In one of his first acts back in the White House, Trump granted clemency to all convicted rioters.
Pardoned by Trump on Tuesday, arrested on Wednesday…
Mr. Ball, however, can’t rely on presidential intervention this time around. He was arrested for an entirely separate incident on Wednesday, and law enforcement officials have charged him with violating gun ownership laws.
Even without the January 6th charges, the Trump devotee still has a criminal record. As a convicted felon, he is not allowed to be in possession of a firearm – but he has since flouted these rules. His rap sheet also detailed those previous offences.
In 2017, he was booked for domestic violence battery by strangulation. Four years later – in an incident with striking similarities to what he was pardoned for – Ball was also convicted for battering and resisting law enforcement with violence.
Who’d have thought it, eh?