A new legal filing in Washington underscores how presidential pardons for Jan. 6 defendants are creating unforeseen headaches for the courts and federal accounting offices. This week the Justice Department asked a D.C. federal judge to order a narrow, technical refund of money paid by a pardoned couple — and spelled out why the cash cannot simply be returned by the executive branch.
The case involves Cynthia Ballenger and Christopher Price, who were convicted after a bench trial in March 2023 before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on charges stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. While appeals were pending, the couple received a blanket presidential pardon earlier this year.
After the pardon, Ballenger and Price moved to recover the $570 each had paid after sentencing — a $70 special assessment and $500 in restitution. The newly constituted Department of Justice told the court it agreed the payments should be returned, saying the convictions that justified those payments had been invalidated.
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Judge Boasberg initially rejected the reimbursement request in mid-2025, but reversed course after the defendants filed a motion to reconsider. In December, he ordered the government to refund $570 to each defendant.
That order has produced a practical puzzle. In a filing on Friday, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro explained why the Executive Branch says it cannot directly cut those refunds: the funds at issue were disbursed by the court to separate entities, and there is no direct mechanism for the executive to pull money back from those recipients without the court’s assistance.
Who holds the money — and why it matters now
According to the DOJ motion, the payments were forwarded by the District Court Clerk to two different destinations: a $500 restitution payment went to the Architect of the Capitol (a legislative-branch agency), while the $70 special assessment was transmitted to the Crime Victims Fund, administered within the Department of Justice. The Clerk’s office, the filing says, has declined to issue refunds on its own, reading the court’s refund order as placing responsibility on “the United States” — which the Clerk interprets as the Executive Branch.
Pirro told the court that, after consulting with Justice Department attorneys, she found no administrative pathway for the Executive Branch to directly return money that the Clerk already sent to those outside recipients. The DOJ’s position is procedural: the Clerk must retrieve the transmitted funds so the Clerk can then disburse them back to the defendants.
- Step 1: The District Court Clerk initiates a request to the Architect of the Capitol to return each $500 restitution payment.
- Step 2: The Clerk seeks reimbursement from the Crime Victims Fund for the $70 special assessment paid by each defendant.
- Step 3: Once those amounts are restored to the Clerk’s custody, the Clerk can issue the ordered refunds of $570 to each defendant.
The Justice Department is asking Judge Boasberg to enter an order that would direct the Clerk’s office to carry out those recovery steps so the court’s earlier refund judgment can be implemented.
Beyond the immediate accounting mechanics, the dispute illustrates a larger point about how presidential clemency can ripple through multiple branches of government. When convictions are undone or pardoned, the path for undoing court-ordered financial obligations is not always straightforward — especially when payments have already been dispersed to legislative or independent funds.
Legal observers say the case could set a practical precedent for other pardoned defendants seeking refunds, forcing courts to devise clear procedures for reclaiming dispersed funds and clarifying the respective roles of the Clerk, the Executive Branch, and outside recipient agencies.
Judge Boasberg will now consider whether to enter the specific order the DOJ requested to compel the Clerk’s office to seek reimbursement from the outside recipients. If he signs such an order, the Clerk would begin the process described in the department’s filing.
Chris Perez contributed to this report.
