A fourth federal judge has now refused to return restitution to a January 6 defendant — even though the Department of Justice itself agreed the funds should be refunded following a pardon from President Donald J. Trump.

The latest denial came from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a well-known Obama appointee who has repeatedly taken a hardline stance against Trump and his supporters. Chutkan rejected a request from Stacy Hager, a 61-year-old Texas man who was convicted in 2023 on four misdemeanor counts related to the January 6 Capitol protest.

Hager, who had already paid $570 in restitution, filed a motion in February asking for the return of that money after his conviction was vacated and he was granted a full presidential pardon.

In a highly unusual move, federal prosecutors agreed with Hager, stating there was “no longer any basis justifying the government’s retaining funds.” But Chutkan rejected the DOJ’s position, citing an 1877 Supreme Court case, Knote v. United States, to claim that pardons do not restore property or rights once the money has entered federal hands.

“A pardon cannot authorize reimbursement once money has ‘been paid to a party to whom the law has assigned them,’ because the party’s ‘rights . . . have become vested,’” Chutkan wrote in a three-page ruling issued last Thursday.

This decision comes despite the D.C. Circuit vacating Hager’s conviction, meaning the ruling was not simply reversed — it was nullified entirely. Still, the judge ruled she had no authority to order the U.S. government to return the $570, even as she admitted that the DOJ’s position was unusually supportive of the defendant.

Chutkan isn’t alone. Three other federal judges in Washington, D.C. — Chief Judge James Boasberg, Judge Royce Lamberth, and Judge Randolph Moss — have all denied similar requests from January 6 defendants who were pardoned by President Trump.

In one case, Judge Boasberg refused to return $1,000 to a Maryland couple. Judge Lamberth denied Utah defendant John Sullivan, and Judge Moss rejected a former U.S. Marine from New Jersey — all despite clear evidence that their convictions were either pardoned or vacated under legal grounds.

“In Knote, the Supreme Court made clear that ‘a pardoned individual is not entitled to payments that have already been deposited into the United States Treasury, absent congressional authorization to withdraw the funds,’” Chutkan concluded.

This rare moment of agreement between the Trump administration and Biden’s DOJ highlights just how politicized the courts in Washington, D.C. have become. Even as Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Dreher acknowledged that Hager’s conviction was “invalidated,” the court still refused to return the funds.

“There is no longer any basis justifying the government’s retaining funds exacted only as a result of that conviction,” Dreher wrote.

Yet Chutkan and her fellow judges have proven unwilling to budge, setting a dangerous precedent where citizens can be forced to pay penalties for convictions that no longer legally exist.

President Trump’s second-term sweeping pardon of January 6 participants — more than 1,500 defendants in total — has enraged Democrats, who continue to use the protest to fuel political persecution. Meanwhile, Republicans have pointed to the DOJ’s abusive prosecution tactics, including pretrial detentions without bail, to highlight the two-tiered system of justice at play.

While progressive prosecutors across the country routinely drop charges for violent left-wing rioters and career criminals, judges like Chutkan are more concerned with punishing Americans who trespassed or peacefully protested in the wrong ZIP code on the wrong day.

The bottom line: If a conviction is vacated, the debt should be, too. But not under the hyper-politicized D.C. federal court system, where restoring justice for Trump supporters appears to be a non-starter — even when the Justice Department is on their side.