John Strand seems to agree for the most part. The former political prisoner who is still getting hounded over his actions on January 6 posted on 𝕏 on Sunday declaring that we need to stop referring to some of the protesters as “non-violent.”

As he noted:

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Please, if you truly care about truth, justice, and the plight of innocent J6 defendants unjustly suffering unspeakable horrors,

STOP SAYING “NON-VIOLENT”

Allow me to explain: the Merrick Garland/Matthew Graves DOJ is corrupt—they lied, manipulated evidence, and conducted an enormous fraud to falsely smear many protesters as “violent” when those protesters had no such intention.

*MOST* of the “violence” alleged by the DOJ is either bogus, and/or self-defensive reactions to conflict that was initiated and exacerbated by police brutality and the government’s truly violent abuse of use-of-force protocols—they killed four unarmed protesters that day alone, for starters.

There *will* be legitimate criteria for determining who was a bad faith actor, necessitating further legal scrutiny in the course of granting a proclamation-style “Pardon of Innocence”…but the assertion of “violence” is irredeemably tainted, and it does not honestly apply to the vast majority of J6 defendants.

This is not a small point—it is CRUCIAL to navigating the path through a deadly swamp of DOJ corruption in order to reach true justice.

We MUST carefully articulate this in the course of achieving EXONERATION for those truly innocent J6 victims, which they deserve and which our nation must deliver.

cc: @VivekGRamaswamy @BrandonStraka @julie_kelly2 @MattGaetz

Let’s bring them home and make this right #JusticeForJ6

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

Please, if you truly care about truth, justice, and the plight of innocent J6 defendants unjustly suffering unspeakable horrors,

STOP SAYING “NON-VIOLENT”

Allow me to explain: the Merrick Garland/Matthew Graves DOJ is corrupt—they lied, manipulated…

— John Strand (@JohnStrandUSA) December 8, 2024

The vast majority in attendance at the rally in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, were there to express their concerns over an election that was clearly fraudulent. They were doing their duty to defend the Constitution and were calling on lawmakers to make a horrible situation right.

By no means am I defending every action taken by everyone at the event. Some clearly took their protests too far. But the hammer of justice was lowered on as many of them as the corrupt Department of Justice and our activist judiciary could wrangle. The event should be classified as a false flag to entrap as many passionate Trump supporters as possible.

This is why it should be a blanket pardon. It seems very likely that if the Deep State psyop that was orchestrated that day had not occurred, the entire event would have remained peaceful. Even the few who took it too far would have been restrained by the other legitimate protesters.

As M. Dowling noted at Independent Sentinel:

President-elect Donald Trump said he is looking to issue pardons to his supporters involved in the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as soon as his first day in office, saying those incarcerated are “living in hell.”

Trump’s comments, the most sweeping he’s made since winning the 2024 election, came during an exclusive interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.

The event was designed to not only entrap protesters but to act as an example to those who would engage in their constitutional right to protest in the future. That alone should be the righteous sentiment that expedites pardons for all who were involved.

The article below from The Epoch Times represents an analysis of the facts and does not necessarily reflect the perspectives of this publication.

(The Epoch Times)—After President-elect Donald Trump won a second term, multiple defendants charged for their roles in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, asked to delay their cases because they anticipate pardons from Trump.

Many were denied, but each nonetheless raised questions about how Trump will handle the cases.

According to data collected by NPR, more than 1,500 people have been charged in relation to Jan. 6, with nearly 1,000 pleading guilty.

At least a dozen cases have been dismissed, while plenty remain with changes following Trump’s election. At the beginning of November, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced multiple sentences and guilty verdicts.

Various factors could determine whether these individuals end up avoiding jail time, but perhaps the most important is Trump’s eventual control of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and who will lead that department.

On Nov. 13, Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz has been critical of the prosecutions and introduced a bill in July that was intended to prevent prosecutors from retaliating against Jan. 6 defendants for seeking resentencing. Gaetz has also questioned federal involvement, stating that Jan. 6 “wasn’t an insurrection” but that it “very well may have been a fedsurrection.”

Assuming the presidency also grants Trump substantial pardon power under the Constitution: Trump has indicated that he’s open to pardoning those charged but left open the possibility that some would face punishment.

“We will treat them fairly,” he said in January 2022. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

More recently, during an event in July, he was asked about individuals who assaulted officers. He said he would “absolutely” pardon the defendants “if they’re innocent” and added that “they were convicted by a very tough system.”

More than 70 defendants have received a mixed verdict, and so far, more than 1,000 people have been sentenced, with 64 percent receiving prison time, according to NPR data. Some defendants have also taken plea deals.

“I think there’s going to be a complete second look at all of the prosecutions,” Robert Ray, a former Trump impeachment attorney, told The Epoch Times, while noting the large number of cases brought. He added that a second look wouldn’t “necessarily yield a favorable result with regard to each and every defendant, but I think there’s going to be a pretty strenuous exercise of the pardon and commutation power to deal with overreaching [by prosecutors].”

John Pierce, an attorney who has represented Jan. 6 defendants, told The Epoch Times he expects a “blanket pardon,” while Trump–Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president-elect “will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis.”

Politics of Pardons

It’s unclear which individuals Trump will consider for pardon.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Lori Ulrich, an attorney with the public defender’s office, told The Epoch Times. She is currently representing Joseph Fischer, whose case made it to the Supreme Court this year.

Fischer and other defendants face a myriad of charges, including an obstruction charge the Supreme Court addressed this summer in Fischer v. United States. It’s unclear how Trump’s DOJ will apply that ruling, but the president-elect’s pardons could be influenced by factors such as the politics surrounding his pardons.

“If President Biden either pardons or commutes the sentences for Hunter Biden, that gives President Trump political cover to either pardon or commute the non-violent J6 offenders, [as well as] Peter Navarro, and Steve Bannon, if he chooses to,” John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, told The Epoch Times.

Shu was referring to President Joe Biden’s son, who was convicted in September of various tax offenses. Both of Trump’s former White House advisers, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, could be pardoned after each served a four month sentences for defying subpoenas from the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.

A CBS poll found that three years after the events of Jan. 6, 78 percent of Americans expressed disapproval toward “actions of those who forced their way into the Capitol.”

William Shipley, an attorney for one of the defendants, suggested in a motion on Nov. 10 that the election didn’t reflect well on the DOJ’s efforts.

“Defendant Baker would point out that the ‘people’ on behalf of whom the Government purports to speak made themselves heard clearly on November 5, and that should mean something to the Department of Justice without regard to what Administration is now in charge,” Shipley said in a motion for defendant Stephen Michael Baker.

That motion, which asked for a delay in proceedings, was quickly rejected by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper this month.

Upon entering office, Trump’s pardon power would allow him to commute sentences and pardon convicts who have already served time, such as Ulrich’s client, Riley Williams. Williams was accused of helping to steal then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop. She was found guilty on two felony counts, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on two other counts, including aiding and abetting theft of government property.

Non-Violent Offenders

Shu told The Epoch Times that pardons for non-violent offenders were more politically palatable.

In August, the DOJ said that approximately 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6, while more than 500 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees. It added that “approximately 163 individuals … have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.”

Among those are Daniel Ball, who pleaded not guilty but whom the DOJ accused of, among other things, “throwing an explosive device that detonated upon at least 25 officers.” Others included a father-son pair who pleaded guilty in January, and Zachary Alam, who was found guilty last year.

David Gelman, an attorney and former Trump campaign surrogate, told The Epoch Times that re-examining the Jan. 6 prosecutions would have to occur on a “case-by-case basis” but indicated that Trump could consider violence in choosing how to exercise his pardon power.

Trump said at a town hall in 2023 that he was “inclined to pardon many of” the defendants who had been convicted. “I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” he said.

Earlier this year, he started one of his rallies with a recording of the national anthem sung by Jan. 6 prisoners. He also vowed in March that his “first acts” as president would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned,” he wrote on his Truth Social account.

In a motion filed just after the election, one of the Jan. 6 defendants, Anna Lichnowski, asked her judge to postpone sentencing partly on the basis that her offenses were non-violent, making her “a good candidate for a pardon,” according to her attorney.

Lichnowski was one of a series of defendants who filed motions for some kind of delay in their cases after Trump’s victory. Many of them have been denied, including by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who said that Trump’s potential pardon was “irrelevant” to Lichnowski’s case.

“The potential future exercise of the discretionary pardon power, an Executive Branch authority, is irrelevant to the Court’s obligation to carry out the legal responsibilities of the Judicial Branch,” Walton said in a Nov. 7 court order.

Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, similarly resisted the motions while arguing that the public is interested in a quick administration of justice.

Graves will likely exit the DOJ in Trump’s second term, experts speculated—something that is expected for many prosecutors at the beginning of a new administration. During Trump’s and Biden’s first terms, dozens of prosecutors were asked to leave.

The vast majority of defendants have been charged with a trespassing offense, the use of which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld in October. Defendant Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump and a former county commissioner from New Mexico, had asked the court to review the DOJ’s use of this charge against him.

In a 2–1 decision, the court held that the DOJ could apply the trespassing law without proving that he was aware that former Vice President Mike Pence’s presence on the Capitol grounds was the reason for restricting that area.

Obstruction Charge

In June, the Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the DOJ had misinterpreted a financial reform law in attempting to accuse the Jan. 6 defendants of obstructing an official proceeding.

The majority opinion in that case, Fischer v. United States, held that the DOJ erred in its attempt to disentangle two portions of the Sarbanes–Oxley financial reform law (Section 1512(c)(1) and (c)(2)).

The DOJ had argued that the law allowed prosecutions that targeted obstructive conduct in a catch-all way that included methods other than those mentioned at the beginning of the section.

A majority of the Supreme Court, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, disagreed and held: “To prove a violation of §1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.”

It’s unclear how Trump and his DOJ will apply the Fischer decision to the defendants’ unique circumstances. It carries a 20-year maximum sentence.

In November, the DOJ said that “approximately 259 defendants who, at the time Fischer was decided, were charged with or convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1512 to determine whether the charge should continue to be prosecuted.”

The DOJ said that after Fischer, the government “decided to forgo the Section 1512(c)(2) charge for approximately 96 defendants, will continue to pursue the charge for approximately 13 defendants, and continues to assess the remaining defendants.”

Approximately 133 were sentenced, and more than half were convicted of that offense and other felonies, according to DOJ data from August.

Austin Alonzo contributed to this report.

Massie’s letter follows troubling testimony from the DOJ’s Inspector General, suggesting that the FBI had confidential human sources (CHSs) present on the Capitol Grounds that day. It raises a critical question: is the DOJ intentionally slow-walking the release of this crucial report?

Joining Massie in this call for accountability are Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Reps. Ben Cline (R-VA), Chip Roy (R-TX), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Victoria Spartz (R-IN), Barry Moore (R-AL), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Harriet Hagman (R-WY), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

The presence of federal assets, particularly CHSs, on Capitol grounds during the events of January 6, 2021, is a game-changer. It starkly undermines the establishment media and federal government’s narrative surrounding that day. Meanwhile, just blocks away, Trump faces federal charges from special counsel Jack Smith, who alleges that he orchestrated the chaos at the Capitol.

Massie’s letter serves as a reminder to Garland of his own words during his June 4, 2024 testimony.

Garland “testified that Inspector General Horowitz is ‘independent’ and ‘the determination of the release of Inspector General reports is up to the Inspector General.’”

“We write to remind you of your commitment,” the letter states.

On September 25, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified before the House Weaponization Committee that the draft of the report is being held up by the DOJ.

This investigation had already seen delays during hearings held by Speaker Pelosi’s House Select Committee on January 6. Horowitz only resumed his investigation in 2023.

Now, the DOJ continues to drag its feet on prosecutions as the 2024 election looms, with several new cases emerging in recent months—over three and a half years after the events of January 6.

During the September 25 hearing, Horowitz confirmed that his draft report would indeed address the presence of CHSs. Massie pressed him for evidence regarding the number of CHSs operating on the Capitol grounds that day.

“Our report will include information in that regard,” Horowitz stated.

However, when pressed on the exact number, he replied, “I’m not in a position to say that, both because its in draft form, and we have not gone through the classification review, and so I need to be careful.”

Yesterday in @Weaponization, I questioned Inspector General Horowitz about the number of confidential human sources who entered the Capitol on 1/6.

Horowitz said the number won’t be known before the election. Biden-Harris doesn’t want the feds’ role on 1/6 known. Why? pic.twitter.com/9UJ4GXMdTX

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) September 26, 2024

Horowitz expressed a desire to issue his report soon but admitted that he does not expect it to be released before the election, indicating that the timing of the classification review is beyond his control.

Massie is not buying it and believes politics are afoot.

“Horowitz said the number won’t be known before the election. Biden-Harris doesn’t want the feds’ role on 1/6 known. Why?” Massie posted on X after the hearing.

Massie’s letter to Garland warns, “If you or any of your subordinates, associates, deputies, or agents within the Department act to delay or interfere with the release of this report, Congress will hold you accountable.”

If this report is ever released, it could drastically alter the prevailing narrative surrounding January 6. If Garland and the DOJ are found to have withheld this report until after the election, Congress may take decisive action.

Horowitz’s testimony strongly suggested that the report would contain explosive information.

Massie pressed Horowitz on how many confidential human sources entered the Capitol on January 6.

FBI protocols prohibit CHSs from breaking the law—entering the Capitol would certainly qualify, as made clear by numerous DOJ prosecutions—without express written consent.

“I’ll have that information in the report,” Horowitz replied.

Interestingly, when Massie inquired about how many CHSs were reimbursed for travel related to January 6, Horowitz responded, “as I sit here, I don’t recall the number,” before abruptly shifting gears and insisting, “and, if I did know it, I wouldn’t be in a position to tell you.”

The FBI operates under the DOJ, which ultimately determines what information is classified.

As the pressure mounts on Garland and the DOJ, one has to wonder: will the truth about January 6 ever see the light of day?

Article generated from corporate media reports.