CNN's Anderson Cooper amazed pardoned J6 rioter may have predicted his own payoff

CNN's Anderson Cooper was amazed on Monday after he realized a pardoned rioter who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection may have predicted that he would eventually get a payoff from the Trump administration.

Cooper recounted the case against Edward Kelly, who was one of the first rioters to breach the Capitol that day, and another rioter named Andrew Paul Johnson. Kelly was convicted in 2024 for plotting to kill the FBI agents who investigated him after Jan. 6, and is serving a life sentence for those crimes.

Johnson was pardoned by Trump last year and was arrested six months later on child sex abuse charges in Florida. Authorities say Johnson tried to buy the silence of one of his victims with a $10 million payment that he said was "restitution" for being a Jan. 6 participant.

That admission by Johnson caught Cooper's attention on Monday, given that the Trump Department of Justice created a $1.776 billion fund to pay allies who claim they were wrongly prosecuted by the Biden administration. Leaked guidelines for the fund include a stipulation that the federal government can't be held liable for crimes committed after the funds are disbursed.

"But you know what? He actually might have been right," Cooper said about Johnson's claim. "He actually might get that money if he applies for it. What's to stop it? Could President Trump receive money from the fund?"