By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
The Sunday after he decided to accept a federal plea offer, in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of selling ammunition to a prohibited person, Pastor Russell Fincher submitted his resignation to the board of his small Oklahoma church, but the board refused to accept his resignation.
“You didn’t change,” he recalls one board member told him. “The government changed.”
Pastor Fincher has continued to preach the gospel to his small flock ever since.
“They kept me going,” Fincher said Tuesday. “God told me the whole time: ‘You trust me.’”
Like Patrick “Tate” Adamiak and others, Fincher was a victim of Joe Biden’s ATF.
He recalls the hellish day in 2023 when a dozen ATF agents wearing tactical gear and carrying AR-15s stormed into his home.
They handcuffed him and laid him out on his porch. Several agents yelled and screamed at him for more than an hour while others ripped apart his home. He offered to relinquish his Federal Firearm License, and an agent quickly had him sign three forms.
The ATF took more than 50 of his personal firearms, including a Colt Commander, five Glocks and a mint AK—a Polytech Pre-ban milled under-folder, which was worth thousands of dollars.
“You’re done. We have to shut you down,” Fincher recalls the lead ATF agent saying. “You tell all your FFL buddies we are coming for them. We are shutting the gun shows down.”
Months later, a federal grand jury issued a three-count indictment charging Fincher with two felonies and one misdemeanor:
- Count one: Engaging in the business of dealing firearms without a license, a felony.
- Count two: Selling ammunition to a prohibited person, a felony.
- Count three: Making false entry in records by a federal firearms dealer, a misdemeanor.
Fincher’s Federal Public Defender negotiated the plea agreement, which kept Fincher out of federal prison. Both sides agreed that three years of probation would be “the appropriate disposition of the case.” The plea agreement also specified that Fincher would not contest the forfeiture of his personal firearms.
Last week, Fincher received a letter from his Teachers’ Retirement Fund, which scared him.
“They said they were kicking me out—I spent 10 years as a teacher—because I was a felon,” he said.
Things changed just a few days later when he received a call from the Federal Public Defender who had handled his criminal case.
“You’re not gonna believe this, but you just got a full presidential pardon,” Fincher said the attorney told him.
President Donald Trump gave Fincher and several others a “full and unconditional” pardon last week.
Now, with no criminal record, Fincher has been busy answering calls from friends, family and supporters.
He hopes he can return to teaching and coaching, in addition to his pastoral work. However, he has no plans to return to selling guns.
“There’s no way I am going to invite the federal government back into my world,” he said. “I am still so petrified of the federal government.”
He hopes he can retrieve his personal firearms from the ATF, and he wants to meet and personally thank President Trump.
“I never thought I’d be here,” he said. “I never thought I’d get a pardon. I serve a mighty God, and as much as I love President Trump, God orchestrated this pardon.”
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