GOP Claims ‘Patriots,’ ‘Political Prisoners’ And Myth Of Jan. 6 Riot
As the 2024 presidential campaign metastasizes, a major issue is percolating as trump and his followers ramp up efforts to normalize the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol as the work of “patriots” and “political prisoners.”
And while the misinformation campaign grows, a worldwide network of private and professional intelligence investigators is using the latest digital technology to help authorities find all those involved in the insurgency.
If he is reelected, trump has said that he may pardon many of those convicted of the Jan. 6 violence. Most Republican lawmakers have characterized the assault on the capitol as an exercise of constitutional rights. At the same time, they back trump’s bogus claims that widespread voter fraud cost trump the 2020 election and that the multiple indictments against trump are the work of partisans in the White House and Justice Department. They would have the American public believe that the singular most important event in national history was really the work of heroes and patriots who were exercising their First Amendment rights under the constitution.
Revisionists claim that Democrats have politicized and greatly exaggerated the violence in an effort to slur Republicans as anti-law, and trump in particular. The claims have reverberated among Republicans as a 2022 survey found that 73 percent of Republican respondents placed at least some blame on “left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad.”
At the time of rebellion, all but the most, far right Republicans condemned the Jan. 6 insurrection and trump’s role in stoking the violence. Now, as the third anniversary is arriving, the Republican voices are largely dismissing the insurrection and blaming the Democrats for languishing over the violence.
Speaking at Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, Vivek Ramaswamy lent credence to a far-right conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was an “inside job.”
“Why am I the only person on this stage, at least, who can say that Jan. 6 now does look like it was an inside job?” Ramaswamy said.
The Capitol riot conspiracy theory was bolstered after Jan. 6 rioter Ray Epps was accused without evidence of being a government informant or agent, with detractors arguing that the attack on the Capitol in 2021 was a “false flag” event.
Last month, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, shared a post on X that argued there were “undercover federal agents disguised as MAGA.”
“I can’t wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about this at our next oversight hearing,” Lee wrote in his tweet.
The man Lee was referring to in the post is a trump supporter currently serving four years in federal prison on Jan. 6-related charges.
Kari Lake, a far right, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Arizona, has said the Jan. 6 perpetrators were victims of politically motivated prosecutors, despite significant evidence, and court judgments, to the contrary.
“It’s terrible what happened,” Lake said. “This, to me, is one of the great injustices in American history.”
Lake mentioned one Jan. 6 conspirator, Edward Jacob Lang, who is seen on videos posted to social media repeatedly swinging a baseball bat at police officers, thrusting a riot shield in their direction, and boasting online about his involvement in the attack. In 2021, Lang was charged with a number of federal crimes but his trial is stalled as his appeal makes its way to the Supreme Court. Lang’s petition urges the high court justices to hear the case “as the nation’s attention turns to the 2024 election.” It argued that there is “good reason” to suspect the Justice Department’s use of the statute will “serve to chill political speech and expression on the eve of one of the most consequential events in American life — the election of the next President of the United States.”
Lake lamented that Lang is “rotting in prison.”
In the 34 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,200 people have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol, including more than 400 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. More than 1,000 others have not yet been identified or charged.
Those charged with crimes related to the attack form the backdrop of trump’s efforts to show that he and the Jan. 6 defendants have been indicted for political reasons. These so-called heroes and patriots are trump’s MAGA army.
The disinformation campaign was posted front and center in the presidential campaign last week when House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said his office still plans to release the balance of roughly 44,000 hours in footage from the Jan. 6 riot. Republicans have claimed the footage in its entirety will show the violence was exaggerated. Parts of the videos have been made public, but Johnson said the balance will be issued after the faces of protesters have been blurred “because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and be charged by the DOJ.” Critics have said that blurring the images is tantamount to obstructing justice in charging those who took part in the riot.
“Look Ahead America,” a group formed by a former trump employee, has secured permits to hold a protest outside the Department of Justice on the third anniversary of the riot, Saturday, Jan. 6th, 2024.
“This protest is to send the message that patriotic Americans have not forgotten the continuing abuses and injustices suffered by our brothers and sisters at the hands of the DOJ and FBI following their peaceful participation in Capitol protests three years ago,” said the group’s founder, Matt Braynard.
Braynard, who briefly worked for trump’s 2016 campaign, has a consulting firm and has worked for years in Republican polling and data analysis. Since trump lost reelection, Braynard had been paid thousands of dollars as a speaker and organizer to make false claims of election irregularities and the Capitol attack. His group has hosted events at the annual far right, Conservative Political Action Conference and rallies supporting those jailed for the events of Jan. 6.
Look Ahead America, which claims it is an “America First Nonprofit” and solicits donations on its homepage as “tax-deductible,” lost its tax-exempt status in May 2020 for failing to file required tax forms.
The trump-led disinformation campaign has included a song and video, “Justice for All,” featuring trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as a group of the men imprisoned for the Jan. 6 attack sings the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Trump has used the song and video at campaign rallies.
On June 8, trump spoke at a fundraiser on behalf of defendants charged for their participation in the Capitol attack. The fundraiser was hosted at Trump’s private golf club in Bedminster, on behalf of the Patriot Freedom Project, a group that assists families of those charged in the riot. Trump said he planned to make an unspecified contribution to the group.
“I’m gonna make a contribution,” Trump told the crowd at his club. “There have been few people that have been treated in the history of our country like the people that you love, like the people that have gone through so much. You have police officers, you have firemen, you have teachers, you have electricians, you have great people, and they’ve been made to pay a price — in many cases, not all cases.”
At a campaign rally in Houston in November, trump referred to people imprisoned for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as the “J-6 hostages.”
In her book, “January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right,” right wing journalist Julie Kells says the charges resulting from the failed insurrection were “mostly low-level misdemeanors that nonetheless have destroyed their lives, ruined their families, bankrupted and alienated them from their own communities because they’re considered domestic terrorists. By and large it was peaceful protest except for, there were a number of people basically agitators that whipped the crowd and breached the Capitol.”
Recently, House Republicans referred to their version of the Jan. 6 assaults in a house resolution that decried anti-Semitic violence in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel in October. The resolution insinuated the U.S. government has exaggerated violence by the right and downplayed violence on the left. The resolution claimed a protest this year against the Israeli response in Gaza was violent although it was peaceful. It compared the Israeli protests to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Republican comparison of the two protests mirrored a resolution proposed this year by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, R-Mich. Tlaib had been involved in the peaceful protest but Greene characterized it as an attempted insurrection.
The misinformation campaign by far right officials started slowly, shortly after the insurrection. Less than six months after the insurrection, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said on May 19,2021, “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you’d actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” A month later, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said on June 15, 2021, that the Capitol attack “was planned and organized, NOT incited in the moment by President Trump, and NO Republican Member was involved. We were ALL victims that day.” There were no facts to back up Gosar’s wild claims.
So who are some of these “patriots”? They have been noted in detail through the work of a coalition of open-source intelligence investigators (OSINT) who have created a group calling itself “Sedition Hunters.” Their task is to help the FBI to identify and locate those who committed crimes on January 6 at the Capitol. The organization uses social media platforms and facial recognition software to publish thumbnails and photos of hundreds of identified Jan. 6 conspirators and others who have not yet been identified or charged.
Sedition Hunters issued a letter of explanation to members of the Metropolitan Police Department and Capitol Police.
“We have seen and heard horrific epithets, the clouds of gas sprayed on you, posts thrown at you and sacred flags used as clubs to beat you. We are witnesses, we will not forget. We will not let the world forget what has been wrought upon you,” the letter said. “We will not stop searching for every one of these traitors/seditionists/criminals because just saying thank you will never be enough.”
Sedition Hunters works with the FBI which has used facial recognition technology to scan through thousands of images taken at the Jan. 11 riot. Those identified by Sedition Hunters are mostly men and mostly white.
The “heroes” and “patriots” include the likes of Fi Duong, 27, of Alexandria, Va., who plead guilty to planning to use Molotov cocktails and of conducting surveillance at the Capitol after Jan. 6. After storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, Duong began a militia-like group in the D.C. suburbs and building up a supply of explosives under the guise of a Bible study group. At the time of his arrest Duong had several guns, including an AK-47, and the material to make 50 molotov cocktails. Duong had no primary criminal record, had a job and lived with his parents and child in Alexandria.
Philip Sean Grillo, 49, of Queens, N.Y., was convicted on Tuesday on charges related to the Jan. 6 riot. Grillo testified at his trial that he didn’t know Congress convened inside the Capitol or that his actions were illegal. He was found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, entering restricted grounds and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
Grillo said in a videotape from the Capitol, “I’m here to stop the steal. We f — -ing did it, you understand? We stormed the Capitol.”
Grillo in May filed as a candidate for New York’s 3rd Congressional District seat that was formerly held by Republican Rep. George Santos until he was expelled from Congress last week for a series of ethical and criminal breaches.
Another is Alan Hostetter, a former California police chief who brought a hatchet to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He was sentenced on Friday to more than 11 years in prison for his role in the siege. Hostetter, who spoke about conspiracy theories during his trial and again at his sentencing hearing, was found guilty in July of multiple felony charges, including conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors said Hostetter met up with others on the morning of the attack and brought “tactical gear, a helmet, hatchets, knives, stun batons, pepper spray, and other gear for himself and others.” He joined a group who pushed through a line of police officers guarding a lower terrace on the west side of the Capitol. Once on the upper level, Hostetter shouted, “The people have taken back their house. Hundreds of thousands of patriots showed up today to take back their government!”
Another was Neil Ashcraft of Sanford, Fla., whose mugshot shows him wearing a college mortar board and cap and gown. Ashcraft stole a U.S. flag and flagpole from on the Capitol grounds during the chaos and was charged with theft of government property and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. He pleaded guilty and last month, was sentenced to 80 days in jail.
Another “patriot” at the Jan. 6 riot was former New York City police officer and ex-Marine, Thomas Webster, who pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer and was sentenced last September to 10 years in prison. Webster had claimed he was defending himself when he swung a metal flagpole at police and tackled one to the ground, choking him by his chin strap while trying to gouge out the officer’s eyes,
A family from Lancaster County, S.C., was sentenced for their actions. They include Linwood Robinson Sr.; his son, Linwood Robinson II; a younger son, Benjamin Robinson; and Brittany Robinson, the wife of Linwood Robinson II. They are all serving sentences from one to four months. All pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Benjamin Robinson “engaged in violence when he kicked at the Speaker’s Lobby door even after police officers inside the House Chamber had drawn their weapons and prepared to shoot the invading mob,” prosecutors wrote.
Another example of this collection of “patriots” is Michael Steven Perkins, 40, of Plant city, Fla., who was sentenced to four years in prison after he used a flagpole to attack police who were trying to defend the Capitol. As officers descended into the crowd to help another officer, Perkins picked up a flagpole and thrust it into the chest of an approaching officer. He then raised the flagpole over his head and swung it down, striking two officers in the back of their heads.
Another trump supporter, Shane Jenkins, smashed a window at the Capitol with a tomahawk ax and threw projectiles at officers during the most brutal battle of the Capitol riot. He was sentenced in October to seven years in federal prison.
Jenkins — who refers to himself as “Skullet” because of his shaved head and mullet — was found guilty of nine criminal counts in March, including felony civil disorder; obstruction of an official proceeding; assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a dangerous weapon; and destruction of government property.
Jenkins’ lawyer called the riot, “one of the saddest episodes in American history” and said there “remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the ‘great lie’ that Trump won the election, Donald Trump being among the most prominent.”
The Justice Department said Jenkins took part in a jail attack on Jan. 6 defendant Taylor Taranto, who was arrested outside former President Barack Obama’s home. A dozen inmates allegedly entered the television room of their pod and assaulted Taranto “because Taranto had been saying derogatory things about Ashli Babitt and her mother.” Babbitt was shot and killed by a police officer at the Capitol riot.
Federal authorities also are offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the location, arrest, and conviction of the person or persons who placed pipe bombs in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021.
Last month, William McCalhoun, a lawyer from Americus, Ga., was sentenced to 18 months in prison for obstructing an official proceeding, among other charges. He also was barred from practicing law in Georgia.
The investigation into the Jan. 6 riot continued on Dec. 5 with the arrest of Brandon Heffner, 38, of Harford County, Md., who was charged with obstruction of law enforcement. He also was charged with entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
William Tryon, a 70-year-old farmer from Coeymans, N.Y., who plead guilty in the storming of the Capitol, was sentenced to 50 days in jail and fined $1,000 and $500 in restitution.
Tryon had created of a group he dubbed the “Liberty Bell Alliance 76,” which called for “modern day minutemen and women” to defend America from “ungodly socialist forces that would destroy it from within, and enslave our posterity!”
Several months earlier, in August 2020, Tryon was a guest on a New York Radio show and said he has held “freedom fests” at his farm and at Camp Pinnacle in Voorheesville over the years. He said he called for people to stand up against “tyrants.”
“The hour is very, very late and the tyrants in their ivory towers have unleashed their minions upon the streets of America. Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country,” Tryon said.
Dozens of friends, relatives and supporters asked a judge to be lenient with Tryon. Town Supervisor George D. McHugh wrote that he had worked on various issues and community projects with Tryon.
“I would lay down my own life for him or anyone in his family … they are the most loving of others, our country and god,” wrote Westerlo, N.Y., town council member Amie Burnside. “Please consider he is not a danger to anyone. Bill is simply just as frustrated just as the rest of the country.”
Sedition Hunters has given colorful nicknames for many of those still sought for the Jan. 6 attack. There is “MeanRedBean,” who is seen in video apparently assaulting officers. “MilkFaceMan” is shown with milk pouring from his face to counter pepper spray. He also is wanted for assaulting police. “BlackBeanieLady” and “Plaid ScarfGirl” also remain wanted in connection with the attack. “LittleRedRioter” is another wanted person. In addition to providing photos and news updates, the Sedition Hunters webpage allows searches by state and organization.
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Investigators are certified professional hired by police departments, journalists, cybersecurity groups, private citizens, and others to research a person or group of interest, providing insight into incidents of fraud, illicit trade, malicious cybercrime, and similar activities. Various colleges offer courses to get OSINT certification.
“Essentially, an OSINT specialist is the curator of publicly available evidence, curating, interpreting, and presenting everything found, creating a solid foundation from which colleagues will be able to act accordingly,” said an OSINT statement.
OSINT in the United States originated with the 1941 creation of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS), an agency responsible for the monitoring of foreign broadcasts. The FMBS was known for correlating the changes in the price of oranges in Paris with successful bombings of railway bridges during World War II.
In July 2004, the 9/11 Commission recommended the creation of an open-source intelligence agency. As a result, in November 2005 the Director of National Intelligence announced the creation of the DNI Open Source Center. The Center was established to collect information available from “the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos and commercial imagery.”