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Hatchet M. Speed

January 6 case-file subject

Verified filing photograph of Hatchet M. SpeedDocumented editorial-use image
Image embedded in Speed - Statement of Facts, filed in U.S. District Court; derivative crop by RealRyanNichols.com. Published for archive identification and reporting; reuse rights are not represented as cleared.Image source →

## Hatchet M. Speed: two separate federal records Hatchet M. Speed is a former software developer and longtime U.S. Navy reservist whose public record includes a January 6 prosecution in the District of Columbia and a separate National Firearms Act prosecution in the Eastern District of Virginia. These cases must be kept distinct. ## January 6 case In *United States v. Speed*, No. 1:22-cr-00244-TNM-1, federal prosecutors charged Speed in connection with his presence inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021. DOJ records report that he was arrested in Virginia on June 22, 2022. Judge Trevor N. McFadden found Speed guilty after a bench trial of obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanor offenses. The DOJ's contemporaneous verdict announcement is dated March 7, 2023. A later DOJ sentencing announcement says the finding occurred March 21, creating an official-source date discrepancy that this archive preserves rather than conceals. On May 8, 2023, Judge McFadden sentenced Speed to 48 months' imprisonment. The charges, findings, and sentence are recorded as procedural facts and are not presented as proof of Speed's overall moral character. President Donald J. Trump's January 20, 2025 proclamation granted a full pardon covering Speed's January 6 conviction. The Office of the Pardon Attorney separately lists `SPEED, HATCHET M.` among certificate recipients. ## Separate Virginia firearms case Speed was also prosecuted in *United States v. Speed*, No. 1:22-cr-00165-MSN-1, in the Eastern District of Virginia. A federal jury found him guilty in January 2023 of three counts of possessing unregistered devices that the government and courts classified as silencers under the National Firearms Act. Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff imposed a 36-month prison sentence on April 13, 2023. That judgment was separate from the January 6 case and was not erased by describing Speed as a January 6 pardon recipient. ## Fourth Circuit appeal In appeal No. 23-4308, argued December 12, 2025, Speed challenged the silencer definition, the jury instructions, the sufficiency of the evidence, the statute's application, and the judgment under the Second Amendment. On May 5, 2026, a unanimous published Fourth Circuit panel affirmed. Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. wrote the court's opinion; Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Julius N. Richardson each wrote separately while joining the judgment. The court held that the statutory definition did not require present operability, found sufficient evidence under the governing appellate standard, rejected the as-applied vagueness challenge, and concluded that Speed had not established a Second Amendment basis for reversal. Those are judicial holdings in the separate firearms case. Government accounts of Speed's statements and intentions remain attributed to the government or the opinion's description of the trial record. ## Was the firearms conviction part of the January 6 pardon? The verified record supports a pardon for Speed's January 6 conviction. The Fourth Circuit's 2026 opinion treated the Virginia firearms judgment as a separate conviction and affirmed it. This profile therefore does not claim that the firearms judgment was pardoned, vacated, or dismissed. ## What is verified directly? The archive connects DOJ verdict and sentencing releases for both cases, the Office of the Pardon Attorney recipient list, the Fourth Circuit's official opinion index, and a captured 36-page copy of the published appellate opinion. The captured PDF is 250,355 bytes and has SHA-256 `3beefadbb48978c1e2d647f2b150c235bd25940cc6884d02e16182a368eb6833`. ## Source and editorial boundary The factual record, government allegations, defense positions, judicial holdings, and editorial analysis are separate. The site's editorial position may discuss J6ers as victims of alleged or documented Biden-era DOJ weaponization, but that analysis does not change the case outcomes, the scope of the pardon, or the separate appellate judgment. ## Help complete the record Readers with authenticated court filings, the individual pardon certificate, firsthand statements, or photographs with documented provenance and lawful reuse rights may submit them through the archive's evidence and correction channels.

The case file

On the record

Case number
1:22-cr-00244-TNM-1 (D.D.C.); 1:22-cr-00165-MSN-1 / 23-4308 (E.D. Va. / 4th Cir.)
Court
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Judge
Trevor N. McFadden; Michael S. Nachmanoff; A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. (appellate opinion)
Disposition
January 6 convictions pardoned January 20, 2025. Separate National Firearms Act judgment affirmed in published Fourth Circuit opinion No. 23-4308 on May 5, 2026.
Arrested
June 22, 2022
Sentenced
May 8, 2023

Charges

  • D.D.C. January 6 case — obstruction of an official proceeding (bench-trial finding; later pardoned)
  • D.D.C. January 6 case — entering and remaining in a restricted building (bench-trial finding; later pardoned)
  • D.D.C. January 6 case — disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building (bench-trial finding; later pardoned)
  • D.D.C. January 6 case — disorderly conduct in a Capitol building (bench-trial finding; later pardoned)
  • D.D.C. January 6 case — parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building (bench-trial finding; later pardoned)
  • E.D. Va. case — three counts of possession of an unregistered silencer under 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) (jury verdict; separate judgment affirmed May 5, 2026)

Sentence

January 6 case: 48 months imprisonment imposed May 8, 2023, later covered by the January 20, 2025 full pardon. Separate E.D. Va. firearms case: 36 months imprisonment imposed April 13, 2023; judgment affirmed by the Fourth Circuit May 5, 2026.

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Connection to United States v. Nichols

Hatchet M. Speed appears in the record of United States v. Nichols through 7 shared documents on file below. The full case — timeline, people, documents — is public and free.

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Evidence on file

7 documents on file

Ryan6 documents

Ryan Nichols' own paperwork — grievances, motions, letters, cell notes.

Govt response1 document

Responses from DC DOC, the U.S. Marshals, and federal agencies.