NC white nationalist fought police on Jan. 6, did Nazi salute and is now pardoned by Trump
President Donald Trump’s pardons this week include one for a self-proclaimed “white nationalist” from North Carolina who fought police at the Capitol, made a Nazi salute and said he feels little regret for his role on Jan. 6, 2021.
Matthew Beddingfield, 24, was released from prison Monday after Trump pardoned him and more than 1,500 other people tied to the riot at the United States Capitol.
More than 100 police officers were injured in that riot, which sent lawmakers into hiding. Four Trump supporters and a police officer died.
“I’m just grateful. It feels like I got my life back, you know?” Beddingfield, who is from Nash County, said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Just a great day.”
Trump told Time Magazine in November he would take a case-by-case approach with Jan. 6 defendants, and Vice President JD Vance said days ago that there “obviously” should not be pardons for those who were violent. But upon returning to the White House, Trump quickly issued blanket pardons and commuted sentences for those convicted, and ordered that the cases of anyone else charged be dismissed.
With the pardons, Trump forgave approximately 50 North Carolinians who had been convicted or charged in the attack.
What happened at the Capitol
Prosecutors alleged Beddingfield jumped over a barricade at the Capitol, charged at police, jabbed at them with a metal flagpole, threw a rod at them and tried to break into the Senate wing. During the skirmish, he stopped to give a Nazi salute, he confirmed in a Tuesday interview with The Charlotte Observer. The salute came to him “in the moment,” he said.
“You need to back up. This is not the way to do it,” an officer told him, according to an account presented in court.
“F--- you!” Beddingfield replied, according to a prosecutor. “You’re on the wrong side. Join us.”
He pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement in February 2023. A judge sentenced him to spend three years in prison and two on supervised release, and to pay $2,000 in restitution. With Trump’s pardon, that sentencing is null.
“I don’t regret it,” Beddingfield said of his involvement at the Capitol. He might have gone “too far” by fighting with police, he told the Observer.
A criminal record
In Johnston County, Beddingfield was charged with attempted first-degree murder in 2019, according to court records. He said he pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and got a two-year probation sentence.
The shooting happened in a Walmart parking lot.
“From publicly available interviews given by Beddingfield’s father, it seems that from the beginning, there was no dispute that Beddingfield shot his victim, a 17-year-old Hispanic male,” an assistant U.S. attorney wrote in a 2022 filing. “The claim appears to be that Beddingfield shot the victim after Beddingfield was robbed.”
Beddingfield said he is a “white nationalist” who got interested in politics when people across the country protested the 2020 Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“White people are losing power in America and it would seem the government (is) backing people who aren’t white and trying to hoist them above white people,” Beddingfield told the Observer.
Even before Jan. 6, he once commented on Instagram that people in Antifa deserve a “slow death,” according to prosecutors. Those prosecutors say that, almost a year after the riot, he wrote in a different Instagram message, “I’d like to reclaim America and it is fine if a few of my peoples enemies are ‘hurt’ in the process.”
Members of the U.S. House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack found that Trump provoked his supporters to violence through his false allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.
The president has granted clemency to members of anti-government fringe groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Trump has described his pardons as a way to end a “grave national injustice” and begin “national reconciliation.”
While many across the country are worried about the future, Beddingfield said he feels optimistic.
“I think we’re on the right path,” he said. “But we’ve got a long ways to go.”
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published January 22, 2025 at 12:50 PM with the headline "NC white nationalist fought police on Jan. 6, did Nazi salute and is now pardoned by Trump."