A former U.S. Marine and NYPD officer who violently assaulted a cop at the Capitol on Jan. 6, including by trying to gouge the officer’s eyes out and swinging a metal flagpole as he screamed things like “you f—ing commie f—,” has been denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information related to the victim.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper noted in his Tuesday order that Thomas Webster — who was convicted in May 2022 of assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer with a dangerous weapon and denied an appeal — was among the Jan. 6 rioters granted a full pardon by President Donald Trump in January after he took office, so he no longer has an ongoing case or reason for needing to obtain the requested info.

“Webster understandably may have sought the requested records in connection with his unsuccessful appeal of his conviction,” wrote Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee. “But he has persisted litigating this case since he and other convicted January 6th rioters were granted full pardons in January 2025.”

In his FOIA request to the FBI filed in 2023, Webster asked for “[a]ll investigation notes and documentation regarding Officer Noah Rathbun [victim] … regarding any and all incidents occurring on May 24, 2021,” according to court records, “possibly to support an appeal,” per Cooper. He did not include a privacy waiver from Rathbun or any other third party, so the FBI denied his request and issued a response neither confirming nor denying the existence of the requested records.

Webster sued the FBI in January 2024 to challenge that refusal and attempted to “reword his FOIA request” as seeking information about an unrelated shooting incident involving Rathbun that occurred in the area on May 24, 2021, according to federal prosecutors. Webster claimed he was interested in “adding information to the public domain” about the FBI and how investigations are handled, but the Justice Department and Cooper weren’t buying it.

“Plaintiff’s interest in Officer Rathbun is personal,” wrote the DOJ in a Jan. 22 filing. “Plaintiff’s request does not even mention the shooting incident at all because its focus is on Officer Rathbun,” prosecutors charged. “The Court should find Plaintiff’s attempt to re-word his FOIA request during litigation unpersuasive.”

And that’s exactly what happened on Tuesday.

Cooper said Tuesday that acknowledgement of the files “would reveal nothing about FBI investigations” in the way Webster argued.

“Had Webster wanted to contribute to public understanding of the FBI’s operations or activities, in line with the purpose of FOIA, he could have requested non-individualized reports from a range of investigations,” the judge explained.

“Webster chose a single purported investigation into an incident that does not appear to have generated much public interest; targeted a specific individual (who so happened to have been a victim of Webster’s assault and testified against him at trial); and failed to explain how the information would offer any insight into broader FBI investigation practices,” Cooper concluded. “The public interest in his narrow request is therefore minimal and cannot, under any burden, override the significant privacy interest at issue.”

As Law&Crime has previously reported, Webster was sentenced to 10 years in September 2022 after he claimed to act in self-defense. An appeals court in Washington, D.C., unanimously rejected arguments of juror bias that he tried to advance in May 2024.

Webster, who represented himself, could not be reached for comment Thursday by Law&Crime.