A man pardoned by President Trump for his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots is facing charges after he allegedly tried to bribe a child sex victim with the promise of money from an anticipated payout from the Trump administration.
Authorities launched an investigation into Andrew Paul Johnson in July after the victim’s mother — who said she was going through her son’s messages on Discord at the time — uncovered inappropriate conversations between Johnson and her child, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Intercept. When she asked her son about Johnson, identified in the documents as her ex-boyfriend, he told her that Johnson molested him on three separate occasions between April 1 and October 2, 2024, starting when he was 11 years old.
He said he confronted Johnson after the second incident, who immediately apologized and begged him not to tell anyone, so that he would not get in trouble. Johnson also told the child that “since he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021,” he would was going to be awarded “$10,000,000” and that “he would be putting him in his ‘will’ to take any money he had left over,” according to the affidavit.
“This tactic was believed to be used to keep [redacted] from exposing what Andrew had done to him,” the document continued.
On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021 a mob made up of pro-Trump protesters breached the U.S. Capitol in a bid to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral win. Nearly every person subsequently charged or convicted in connection with chaos — more than 1,500 — has since been pardoned by President Trump. While the President has discussed the possibility of a potential payout to those pardoned, no one has received any sort of payment.
Johnson was arrested in Tennessee in August and extradited to Florida on charges of lewd/lascivious molestation, lewd/lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor.
