‘Kill ‘em’: Former Jan. 6 defendant now a senior adviser to DOJ
“Nazi!” and “Gestapo!” a Capitol rioter hollered on Jan. 6, 2021, as “Don’t Tread On Me” and Trump flags flew high. “Kill ‘em!” he shouted, encouraging fellow rioters to kill the police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol. “You guys are disgusting,” he said to the officers.
Jared Wise told the cops he used to serve in law enforcement, then yelled: “Kill ‘em, kill ‘em, kill ‘em!”
More than four years later, Wise is a senior adviser to President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ). On Thursday, Aug. 7, NPR published footage of Wise during the Capitol riot, which came from multiple angles of police body cameras.
The Justice Department used the footage, made public for the first time by NPR, to charge Wise in 2023 for civil disorder, assaulting police and other federal charges. He was one of more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 assault, in which five people died within 36 hours.
In a court transcript from his trial obtained by NPR, Wise admitted he yelled “kill ‘em,” but he said he didn’t mean it, and later expressed regret over those comments.
Former FBI agent
NPR discovered the footage during its review of thousands of court documents from the Jan. 6 criminal cases. A group of media outlets obtained the court exhibits through legal action.
From 2004 to 2017, NPR said, Wise worked for the FBI, where he was assigned to international counterterrorism and eventually became a supervisory special agent. By 2021, he was working as a consultant in Bend, Oregon, and ventured to Washington, D.C., on the day Congress was certifying former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win over Trump.
One of hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, Wise entered the building through a breached door and later climbed out a broken window.
Wise did not assault police officers, NPR said, but he later testified it would have been “morally justified” to stop officers from using excessive force on other rioters.
Jan. 6 pardons
Wise was never convicted in relation to the Jan. 6 attack. On Inauguration Day in January, Trump signed an executive order granting mass pardons to all Capitol rioters, ending all prosecutions, including those against violent extremists. A judge dismissed Wise’s case the following day.
The Justice Department did not respond to inquiries from NPR about Wise’s job. He holds the title of senior adviser in the deputy attorney general’s office and has worked on internal reviews of alleged “weaponization” of law enforcement.
Attorney General Pam Bondi assigned a group of DOJ officials to look into “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” related to the Jan. 6 attack, NPR said.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
