Soon after Elias Nick Costianes became one of the last Jan. 6 defendants released from federal custody, he stepped outside a downtown Baltimore courthouse, placed his arm around his attorney, Carol Stewart, and recorded a social media video.

“For now, we’re free,” the 46-year-old said last week. “God bless America. Thanks, President Trump. And thank you, Carol.”

Five months had passed since President Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people charged with crimes relating to the 2021 Capitol attacks, but a small group had remained entangled in additional criminal matters.

Among them was Costianes, imprisoned since February after agents found firearms and drugs during a post-Jan. 6 raid of his Baltimore County home.

In the months since, Costianes’ case and others like it have revealed the Trump administration’s efforts to exonerate Jan. 6 defendants, not only for crimes they allegedly committed at the Capitol, but for separate criminal charges that arose from investigations into the insurrection.

A car dealer, homebuilder and YouTube content creator, Costianes was among thousands of Trump supporters who gathered in D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, the day Congress was set to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

In an interview after his release, Costianes said he traveled to Washington because it was “obvious” the election was stolen from Trump, a baseless conspiracy theory that judges, state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general never substantiated.

Costianes said he planned only to attend a Trump rally on the Ellipse and film content for his YouTube channel. But soon, he followed a stream of supporters who, at the president’s urging, had begun marching towards the Capitol.

As a riot began to unfold, Costianes allegedly climbed scaffolding outside the building, ascended the stairs and entered through a window, according to an FBI affidavit and other court documents.

Once inside, Costianes was seen on social media and surveillance videos riding a senators-only elevator and walking into the Senate chamber, the affidavit said. Another video allegedly showed Costianes shouting in support of a mob as it overran police who were guarding a doorway.

Costianes, who now lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, admitted entering the Capitol but denied taking part in any violence. He has described his actions as “walking around peacefully for a half an hour.”

On Feb. 12, 2021, Costianes was arrested at his Nottingham home. The government later charged him with six Jan. 6-related crimes, including obstructing the certification of the election, entering restricted areas, engaging in disorderly conduct and illegally protesting.

Federal agents also raided his house, discovering a pistol, two semiautomatic rifles and a shotgun. Two of the weapons were not registered to Costianes. In addition, officers found large quantities of ammunition, four vials of liquid testosterone, a mason jar containing marijuana and evidence of cocaine use.

The search resulted in a second criminal case against Costianes for firearm and drug offenses. He pleaded guilty in June 2023 and was sentenced to one year plus one day in prison.

Meanwhile, Costianes’ Jan. 6 prosecution experienced several delays and was still pending when Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. The president’s sweeping pardon of Jan. 6 defendants, issued hours into his second term, abruptly ended that case before it went to trial.

Over the next several months, courts grappled with how much further the government could go in seeking to clear Jan. 6 defendants like Costianes.

On Feb. 12, the same day Costianes started a federal prison sentence in West Virginia for his gun conviction, defense attorneys filed a motion arguing Trump’s pardon applied to that case, too.

The government filed a response saying it agreed with the defense. It made similar efforts to extend Trump’s pardon to gun charges brought against Jan. 6 defendants in Tennessee, Florida and California.

Courts have reached varying conclusions on these matters. Stewart said another of her Jan. 6 clients, Jeremy Brown, had his conviction for possessing weapons, grenades and classified materials vacated by a Florida judge who agreed the pardon covered the additional offenses.

But U.S. District Court Judge James Bredar, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, flatly rejected efforts to apply Trump’s pardon in Costianes’ case, calling it “bad faith” and “unreasonable.”

The gun crime, Bredar wrote in a pointed 19-page rebuke, “occurred on February 12, 2021, not on January 6, 2021, in the District of Maryland, not at or near the United States Capitol. The offense itself in no way related to the events of January 6, 2021 at the Capitol.”

In March, the Justice Department proposed a second route to overturning Costianes’ weapons conviction, filing a motion under Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to drop Costianes’ gun charge because it no longer wished to prosecute the case.

Prosecutors said Costianes’ lack of a criminal record outside the dropped Jan. 6 charges and his role caring for an ailing sister factored into their decision to dismiss the case.

“The Department has determined that its resources should not be devoted to investigating and prosecuting certain in-home offenses (like Mr. Costianes’s) that would not have been discovered if the government had not investigated and prosecuted people for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in court filings.

In recent months, the Trump administration has invoked Rule 48(a) to dismiss indictments against a number of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Earlier this month, Bredar granted the Rule 48(a) motion in a four-page ruling, citing courts’ limited power to deny such requests. The decision overturned Costianes’ gun conviction and vacated his sentence.

At a hearing in Baltimore last week, Bredar ordered Costianes released from prison under several conditions, including that he seek employment, participate in mental health treatment and submit to drug testing.

He walked free having served less than four months of a one-year sentence.

Trump’s prolonged effort to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 and vindicate those involved has drawn widespread and bipartisan backlash. But Stewart pushed back against criticism that Jan. 6 defendants have escaped accountability.

“It was an unfair process,” said Stewart, who has represented nearly two dozen Jan. 6 clients. “They were really persecuted, as far as being destroyed in the press [and] having jobs terminated.”

After his release, Costianes changed out of a maroon prison jumpsuit and headed with Stewart and two friends to The Capital Grille, where they planned to celebrate with a steak dinner.

While walking along Pratt Street, Costianes called the four-year legal battle against him “politically weaponized.” He said his involvement in Jan. 6 had cost him jobs and friends and left him broke.

“You start charging gun owners who smoke weed, that’s crazy,” he said.

Costianes planned to return to Morgantown to care for his sister, who he said was in hospice care. His gun case is still pending an appeal in circuit court.

Asked if he had any regrets about his actions on Jan. 6, he paused for several seconds.

“No,” he said before appearing to reconsider.

“There’s no way I would ever do it again.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Dylan Segelbaum contributed reporting.