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Federal charges against former NHC Moms for Liberty vice-chair dismissed after Trump order

Justina Guardino pictured coming through a U.S. Capitol window on January 6, 2021.
FBI / U.S. District Court for Eastern North Carolina
/
WHQR
Justina Guardino pictured coming through a U.S. Capitol window on January 6, 2021.

After President Donald Trump issued a blanket pardon to all defendants involved in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, federal prosecutors under Trump’s administration filed a motion to dismiss charges against Justina Guardino, formerly the vice-chair of the New Hanover County chapter of Moms for Liberty. Senior D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Alaine Howell, an Obama appointee, granted the motion in part, but objected to Trump’s pronouncement as “flatly wrong,” and refused to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” thus theoretically leaving the door open for future prosecution — although that's unlikely.

Updated 8:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 7.

On January 20, President Trump directed the Attorney General to dismiss “with prejudice” all prosecution against people for crimes related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Trump’s order referred to Jan. 6 indictments as “a grave national injustice.”

The following day, federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss all four misdemeanor charges against Justina Guardino, a Wilmington-area political activist and former vice-chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter.

Guardino was arrested last year on several charges, including knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in the Capitol grounds and building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building. As Trump requested, the motion asked for a dismissal “with prejudice,” meaning it would prohibit any future criminal prosecution against Guardino.

In September, Guardino’s federal public defender told WHQR she would be pleading “not guilty.” According to court records, Guardino was preparing for a jury trial set to begin on February 18, with pre-trial motions already filed. (Guardino’s case was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before being moved to the Eastern District of North Carolina, and then returned to D.C. district court.)

Judge’s objections 

The motion to dismiss was granted on January 23 by senior D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Alaine Howell, an Obama appointee who served as the chief judge for the district under Trump and then Biden from 2016 to 2023.

In her order, Howell was critical of the prosecution’s request, noting that the charges had been supported by significant evidence and the prosecution had provided “no factual basis for dismissal.”

“No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. No ‘process of national reconciliation’ can begin when sore losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity,” Howell wrote in the discussion section of her order.

Howell cautioned that Trump’s order “raised the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other sore losers and undermines the rule of law,” calling the assertions in the pronouncement “flatly wrong.”

Despite Howell’s objections, she acknowledged that a judge in her position had “no power” to deny a motion to dismiss.

However, Howell did refuse to grant the prosecution’s request for a dismissal with prejudice, which would prevent charges from being refiled.

Howell argued that “nothing about the government’s reasoning for dismissal warrants entry of dismissal with prejudice.” Howell cited the 1994 Reed v. Farley case, which noted that “dismissal with prejudice of criminal charges is a remedy rarely seen in criminal law, even for constitutional violations.”

Editor's note: It's worth noting that presidential pardons are considered to be irrevocable and, even if the Jan. 6 pardons were somehow challenged, the statute of limitations on Guardino's charges (which are five years, like most federal misdemeanors) will run out next year, still early in Trump's term.

Below: Judge Howell's order

Ben Schachtman is a journalist and editor with a focus on local government accountability. He began reporting for Port City Daily in the Wilmington area in 2016 and took over as managing editor there in 2018. He’s a graduate of Rutgers College and later received his MA from NYU and his PhD from SUNY-Stony Brook, both in English Literature. He loves spending time with his wife and playing rock'n'roll very loudly. You can reach him at BSchachtman@whqr.org and find him on Twitter @Ben_Schachtman.