Oral arguments before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled for December 12, in the most ridiculous “firearm silencer” case in U.S. history.
With the recent ‘repardon’ of J6er Dan Wilson, it seems a good time to alert the public about the plight of another J6er in a comparably similar predicament—Hatchet Speed. As The Gateway Pundit reported on November 16, Dan Wilson was prosecuted in two cases stemming from the January 6 investigation—a prosecution over events at the Capitol, and a separate prosecution for firearm possession by a felon.
After President Trump’s initial January 20 pardons were issued, Wilson was one of several J6ers who had such separate (mostly firearm- or drug-possession-related) cases which grew from J6 investigations. This triggered months-long court controversies regarding whether Trump’s Jan. 20 pardon applied to the gun/drug cases. Ultimately, the Trump Justice Department and most courts agreed (with varying degrees of reluctance) that Trump’s Inauguration-Day pardons covered the tangential gun/drug/etc. cases.
Dan Wilson’s case was unique because a spiteful DC judge, Dabney Friedrich, ridiculously ruled that Wilson’s original pardon didn’t apply to Wilson’s gun possession case. (despite ALL parties in the case; BOTH the D.O.J. and Wilson’s own lawyers saying it did!). This necessitated an unprecedented SECOND pardon by President Trump to free Wilson from the gun charge he was already pardoned for.
This leaves Hatchet Speed of Virginia as perhaps the last J6er who is still wrongly in jeopardy over a related case covered by Trump’s 1/20/25 pardon. In 2023, Speed was wrongly prosecuted for possession of three “firearm silencers” (which WEREN’T firearm silencers), stemming from the FBI’s J6-related raid on Speed’s property.
Speed is in the same situation as Dan Wilson, Elias Costianes (possession of firearm/ammunition in addition to protests at the Capitol); Jeremy Brown (alleged possession of stolen grenades, unregistered rifle, and classified documents covered by Trump’s J6 pardon); Daniel Ball (illegal gun possession held to be covered by Trump’s pardon); Benjamin Martin (Gun possession by prohibited person held covered by the pardon); Peter Krill (conviction for possessing ammunition as a convicted felon covered by Trump’s pardon proclamation); Guy Reffitt (possession of firearm silencers held to be covered by the 1/20/25 pardon).
Speed’s “silencers” weren’t even silencers, they were fluid drip containers.
Hatchet Speed’s three alleged “firearm silencers” weren’t even capable of being used as silencers without drilling and other modifications. The objects were commercially advertised solvent traps sold over the counter at gun stores or online. These devices are designed to collect gun-cleaning solvent from the barrels of firearms.
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The “silencer” case against Speed began with the most unconstitutional search warrant in history: the geofence warrant which commanded telecom companies to provide cell-phone data from everyone who was near the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Although the 4th amendment requires warrants to be based on probable cause that specific individuals committed specific crimes, the J6 geofence warrant merely alleged that every cell phone holder at the Capitol on 1/6/2021 may have been either a witness or a perpetrator of a dozen possible crimes (including murder of federal officials).
After the DOJ identified a cell number at the Capitol as belonging to Hatchet Speed, the FBI planted an undercover agent in Speed’s midst. The undercover agent posed as a MAGA patriot and befriended Speed for months during 2021. The undercover agent spent months jogging, exercising and dining with Speed while secretly recording Speed in private off-handed conversations about the approach of end times, militias, Jews, Christians, and other topics. Some of Speed’s remarks were private discussions about books that Speed was reading.
Then in the summer of 2022, the FBI raided Speed’s property and indicted Speed in TWO federal courts: The D.C. federal court (with “four standard misdemeanors”) and the Eastern District of Virginia (with three counts of possessing unregistered silencers). And the irrelevant, secret recordings of Speed, uttered a year after the events of January 6, became a central feature of the DOJ’s prosecution. Speed was soon smeared throughout the press as an “anti-Semite” and extremist. And the government’s “silencer” case was entirely built on Speed’s utterance to the FBI agent that “the idea” behind owning the commercially sold solvent traps was to convert them to silencers in the future, in the event of a future end-times war between Christians and Jews!
Of course, almost any household object, a doorknob, a paper towel dispenser, a milk jug, a coffee maker, or a thermostat could be converted into a “firearm silencer” with enough drilling or modification. Speed’s conviction for silencer possession was based on the U.S. Code’s preposterously broad definition of “firearm silencer”:
The term “Firearm Silencer” or “Firearm Muffler” means any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for the use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication.
18 U.S.C., § 921(A)(24)
Never before had someone been convicted of possessing a “combination of parts”-type “silencer” where the “parts” needed actual drilling or alteration to become transformed into a silencer.
Speed’s first trial on the bogus “silencer” claims ended in a hung jury because the case was so ridiculous. In response to the mistrial, the DOJ added superseding §1512 (“obstruction of an official proceeding”) charges against Speed in the D.C. case. (And the Biden DOJ even refused to drop the bogus obstruction charge even after the Supreme Court’s Fischer decision invalidated the statute as applied to protesting.)
Speed had three trials in two different federal courts and was ultimately convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison (4 years for the bogus “obstruction” conviction; plus 3 years for the bogus “silencer” conviction). He was released with the other J6ers on the night of Trump’s inauguration (after serving almost two years) but has remained in legal limbo regarding the “firearm silencer” convictions.
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Speed’s false “silencer” trials were not just farcical regarding the definition of “silencer.” They also made a mockery of rules of evidence. Speed’s (irrelevant, year-after-the-fact, extremely prejudicial) comments about Jews, militias and end-times were admitted into evidence to show Speed’s ‘state of mind’ regarding future, conceptual use of the solvent traps as silencers in the event of end-times battles with the Jews. But at the same time, evidence of Speed’s true state of mind (his statements to the undercover agent that he would never convert the containers into silencers without properly complying with BATF regulations) were excluded by Judge Nachmanoff on grounds that the comments were improper “mistake of law” evidence which might ‘confuse’ the jury. (This is the same judge in the Eastern District of Virginia who is presently helping disgraced former FBI Director James Comey escape justice.)
Although the Trump DOJ has filed motions and statements in other cases indicating that Trump’s original pardon applied to everyone else in Speed’s position, Speed’s case seems to have been forgotten. Oral arguments are scheduled for December 12!
Speed’s lawyer Roger Roots, who provided much of the background for this article, is seeking to raise $2,500 to cover the costs of fighting this appeal. If the 4th Circuit denies Roots’ motion to argue via Zoom, Roots will need to fly to Richmond, VA for this oral argument. Speed is broke and trying to rebuild his shattered life. www.givesendgo.com/HatchetSpeed
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