Erased conviction, repeated offense: A newly pardoned Jan. 6 defendant is charged again over death threats to federal judges.
Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr. is once again facing serious federal charges. The 58-year-old Georgia resident received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, erasing his past conviction tied to the Capitol riot. However, he cannot seem to stay out of jail.
According to an FBI affidavit filed in Atlanta federal court and first uncovered by Court Watch, investigators say Meredith went online to target judges. In an April 23 Facebook update, his account reportedly declared: “ALL J6 Federal JUDGES will be EXECUTED!”
An online tip reached the FBI that very day. To confirm who was behind the screen, agents pulled records from Google, Meta, and T-Mobile, tracing the login straight to a device in Canton, Georgia.
Ignored federal warnings
Federal authorities were already watching him. According to the court filing, agents had questioned Meredith twice before about threatening social media posts, once at a courthouse in 2024 and again by phone in August 2025.
FBI Special Agent Richard Taylor was unequivocal. In his sworn statement, he wrote that “the message, which expressly threatened execution, constituted a true threat under the circumstances.” He added that “Meredith’s history of violent online rhetoric indicates that he knowingly sent the message.”
Because those judges sit outside Georgia, the threat crossed state lines.
Echoes of January 6
Meredith previously served 28 months in federal prison for a nearly identical offense, as Newsweek reported. During the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, he drove into Washington carrying a pistol, a rifle, and roughly 2,500 rounds of ammunition.
While in the city, he sent a text message to a relative back home threatening to “put a bullet” in the head of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He pleaded guilty later that year. His sentence vanished only when Trump granted sweeping pardons covering the Capitol attack.
As Politico reporter Kyle Cheney noted after Court Watch broke the news, the newly pardoned man now faces prosecution for returning to the exact behavior that first locked him up.
