A federal judge wants the Trump administration to explain in detail what President Donald Trump's pardons for Jan. 6 defendants were meant to cover.

At issue is Dan Wilson, a Kentuckian who was convicted of gun crimes unrelated to the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

During a two-hour hearing Tuesday, the U.S. attorney's office in Washington said "further clarity" showed that Trump's pardon covered Wilson's conviction for illegally storing firearms at his home, Politico reported.

However, three weeks earlier, the Department of Justice said the president's pardon did not apply to the conviction.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Blackwell told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich that DOJ's understanding of Trump's pardon had evolved.

In his first day in office for his second term as president, Trump pardoned nearly everyone criminally charged with participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

It was reported the act effectively wiped away legal consequences for all but 14 of the nearly 1,590 people charged over the breach. The exceptions, members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers organizations, had their sentences ended early and were to be released from federal prison.

Although defendants have argued that Trump's pardons cover other non-Jan. 6 crimes, the president did not speak to that issue when he signed the executive proclamation issuing the pardons.

In recent days, the DOJ has moved to drop other Jan. 6 cases involving defendants facing other federal felonies.

Friedrich, who's weighing Wilson's last-minute effort to avoid prison for the gun conviction, grilled Blackwell during the hearing.

Blackwell told the judge that those non-Jan. 6 convictions were the result of FBI searches conducted as part of the Capitol attack investigation.

The DOJ attorney also told Friedrich there were exceptions to the DOJ's new interpretation of the pardons.

The judge asked Blackwell whether a Jan. 6 defendant was later connected to a murder, would the defendant be pardoned? Blackwell said she couldn't answer that question, Politico reported.

"That's just extraordinary," Friedrich said.

The judge then expressed concerns that the administration keeps changing the meaning of the president's pardons.

"It can't be the case that a pardon can be issued in vague terms and months later, the president can make a determination of what it means," Friedrich said. "It's not my job to craft the pardon language."

Reuters contributed to this story.

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