No Amount Of Nancy Pelosi’s Revisionist History Can Erase Her Key Role In J6 National Guard Delay

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-11-at-10.01.23 AM-e1749654185503-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-11-at-10.01.23%5Cu202fAM-e1749654185503-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]Pelosi’s claim that she ‘begged’ Trump to send the National Guard to the Capitol on January 6th is a proven lie.

Fact-check: President Trump authorized 20,000 National Guard troops for duty on Jan. 6, 2021



The former Democrat co-chairman of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 continues to lie about President Donald J. Trump’s authorization of the D.C. National Guard on Jan. 6.

Amid the backdrop of the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) took to social media on June 8 and claimed, “Trump refused to call the National Guard during the Jan 6th insurrection.”

'Pelosi will never go for it.'

— (@)

The truth is that several days ahead of time, President Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard troops for duty on Jan. 6. Under the law, those troops would need to be requested by a governor or, in the case of the District of Columbia, the mayor.

Democrat politicians refused Guard help

Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser rejected the offer of National Guard troops in a Jan. 5 letter to the Department of Defense.

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund requested Guard troops days in advance during meetings with the House and Senate sergeants at arms. At the time, the House sergeant at arms, Paul Irving, reported to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The late Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger reported to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Sund was later told by Stenger that the National Guard request would not have flown because, as Irving put it, “Pelosi will never go for it.”

The sergeants at arms are two of the three voting members of the Capitol Police Board, which is responsible for security at the Capitol. The board refused Chief Sund’s requests for the National Guard until mid-afternoon on Jan. 6, after the Capitol had been breached and the grounds overrun with tens of thousands of protesters.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense inspector general’s report regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the use of National Guard troops was discussed during a White House meeting on Jan. 3, 2021.

In attendance were acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, presidential Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Sec. Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel.

“The president told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protesters on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event,” Milley said.

Patel, who is now FBI director, said Trump did all he was constitutionally allowed to do.

“He said, ‘If you need up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women, not just in Washington, D.C., but anywhere in the country, you have my authorization,’” Patel recalled.

Miller recalled the discussions this way: “The president said while we’re leaving, ‘Hey, one more thing,’ and we all sat back down and discussed what was going on on Jan. 6,” Miller said.

'I am stunned by the repeated statements by Pelosi.'

“The president was doing just what I expect the commander in chief to do, any commander in chief to do. He was looking at the broad threats against the United States, and he brought this up on his own. We did not bring it up.”

During a series of conference calls on Jan. 6, the Pentagon balked at the “optics” of having National Guard troops at the Capitol. Thus began a critical three-hour, 19-minute delay in putting boots on the ground at the Capitol.

The career officers at the Pentagon were more concerned with politics than with ensuring that the National Guard made it to the Capitol, said Casey Wardynski, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs and a 30-year U.S. Army veteran who served former President Donald Trump at the Pentagon from 2019 to 2021.

“Instead of looking after what’s best for the country, they were looking to cover their asses and do what was best for their careers and for the perception of their favorite institution, the Army,” Wardynski told Blaze News.

New Jersey police arrived before National Guard

U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, said information uncovered by his investigators was ignored by the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee and left out of the Pentagon inspector general report issued in November 2021.

“It took too long for the D.C. National Guard to arrive at the Capitol. The 113th Wing Capital Guardians have a proud history protecting our nation’s capital and serving our nation’s leadership. Nevertheless, the New Jersey State Police from nearly 150 miles away responded to the Capitol before the D.C. National Guard.”

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

In Jan. 6 HBO documentary footage obtained by Loudermilk’s subcommittee, Pelosi expressed exasperation that the Guard was not at the Capitol, at nearly the same hour that her House sergeant at arms was refusing Sund’s desperate pleas for National Guard help.

Sund told Blaze News in 2024 that if Pelosi had simply granted his Jan. 3 request for the National Guard, “I don’t think we would be here discussing this today.”

“I am stunned by the repeated statements by Pelosi about there not being any National Guard deployed to the Capitol in advance of the attack on January 6,” Sund said, “when it was her sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives who denied my request for support on January 3, and then again repeatedly for 71 minutes while we were under attack on January 6.”

Sund said the response to his urgent request for help was “absolutely abysmal,” noting that by the time Guard members arrived at the staging location near the Capitol, they were no longer needed.

“They could have not shown up and it wouldn't have changed a thing,” Sund told Blaze News.

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Retiring Capitol Police chief takes shots at Jan. 6 protester Ashli Babbitt, settlement of civil lawsuit



Retiring U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger took some parting shots at the late Ashli Babbitt on his way out the door, claiming in a May 2 internal memo that she “attacked the U.S. Capitol” and ignored police orders to stay out of the Speaker’s Lobby hallway where she was shot to death by Lt. Michael Byrd.

The two-page letter was read at all roll calls, posted on bulletin boards, and distributed by email. It expresses Manger’s disdain for the U.S. Department of Justice agreeing to settle the Babbitt family’s $30 million wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the federal government on Jan. 5, 2024.

Attorneys for Judicial Watch Inc. and the DOJ told a federal judge on May 2 they had reached a “settlement in principle” that should be finalized within weeks. No financial terms were disclosed.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said the settlement is “going to be historic!” Judicial Watch represents Aaron Babbitt and his late wife’s estate in the lawsuit against the federal government.

A status report that Judicial Watch and the DOJ filed with U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes on May 6 did not include an update on the expected timing to finalize the settlement.

It did, however, propose that Babbitt’s former attorney, Terrell N. Roberts III, enter into fee arbitration with the Attorney Client Arbitration Board of the District of Columbia Bar. Roberts opposes that solution, the court filing said. Roberts’ attempts to secure a restraining order and a 25% lien on the final settlement were rebuffed by Judge Reyes. Roberts withdrew from the Babbitt case in late February 2022.

Manger’s letter makes several questionable contentions, including that Babbitt ignored orders by police to stay out of the Speaker’s Lobby.

Ashli Babbitt punches rioter Zachary Jordan Alam in the nose after he smashed out several windows in the entrance to the Speaker's Lobby in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Babbitt was fatally shot seconds later.Blaze News graphic from Sam Montoya photograph. Used with permission.

According to video shot by journalist Tayler Hansen, he and Babbitt freely walked into the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby at 2:36 p.m. On the way, they passed Jason Gandolph, a plainclothes House Sergeant at Arms officer. Hansen greeted him and said, “Stay safe.” Gandolph was walking and looking at his phone at the time.

Three U.S. Capitol Police officers were standing at the end of the hall outside the Speaker’s Lobby: Officer Kyle Yetter, Sgt. Timothy Lively, and Officer Christopher Lanciano. Hansen offered the officers a water bottle while Babbitt talked to the trio. They were the only ones in the hall with Babbitt and Hansen until other protesters began filling the space a short time later.

'We’ve got to start thinking about getting the people out.'

Gandolph told investigators that Babbitt helped to smash the glass in the doors and windows of the Speaker’s Lobby entrance. Video from the hallway shows, however, that Babbitt did not touch the doors or the glass, but she did shout at the officers to “call f**king help!”

“In 2021 the DOJ said there was no evidence to show law enforcement broke the law, yet now the DOJ is agreeing to pay a settlement,” Manger wrote.

A 14-page DOJ memo on the killing of Babbitt by then-Lt. Byrd, now a captain, was released in June 2022 by Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The memo said there was “insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lt. Byrd violated Ms. [Babbitt’s] civil rights by willfully using more force than was reasonably necessary, or was not acting in self-defense or the defense of others.”

Lt. Michael L. Byrd, who killed Ashli Babbitt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has 'significant' discipline history including gun incidents, U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) disclosed in November 2024.Photos by Judicial Watch, John Sullivan

The DOJ memo has been criticized because it cited the wrong legal standard for determining whether police use of lethal force is justified. The “gold standard” is the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Connor.The High Court said police use of force should be judged on the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard without regard for the officer’s subjective state of mind.

“An officer’s evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively reasonable use of force; nor will an officer’s good intentions make an objectively unreasonable use of force constitutional,” the court said.

Even if the force Byrd used in killing Babbitt was unreasonable, “the government must show that an officer acted willfully, that is, with the specific intent to deprive the victim of a constitutional right,” the DOJ report said. In this context, “willfully” means that an act “was done voluntarily and intentionally, and with the specific intent to do something the law forbids; that is with a bad purpose either to disobey or disregard the law.”

'I asked for permission to evacuate. I heard no response.'

Stanley Kephart, a police use-of-force expert who has testified in court cases more than 350 times, said use of the term “willfully” is from a 1985 U.S. Court of Appeals case from the Fifth Circuit, United States v. Garza. He said it should not be applied to Byrd’s killing of Babbitt.

“The highest culpable mental state in committing a crime is ‘knowingly’ and Captain Byrd did just that,” Kephart said. “Willingly does not apply.”

Byrd did not write any reports on the shooting and refused to make a statement to internal affairs investigators. His only public statement on the shooting was made in a televised August 2021 interview with NBC anchor Lester Holt. Byrd said he feared for his life at the time he fired his service weapon. He said, however, he could not tell if the person climbing into the broken window was armed or even what sex the person was.

Kephart said he believes the Biden DOJ had a pre-ordained conclusion to the shooting probe. He called the DOJ report a “total miscarriage of justice.”

“The glaring thing about it, they picked the Garza decision, which was an aged decision. Graham v. Connor is the newest Supreme Court finding and that’s why it is the gold standard,” Kephart said. “For them to go back in time and pick an aged decision that was friendly to them is a clear indication of what they were attempting to do.”

Video from the hallway where violence broke out shows Babbitt tried to stop the rioting and shouted at officers to call for backup. Just before she climbed into the broken side window and was shot, she punched rioter Zachary J. Alam in the nose and knocked off his glasses. Alam had just used a black riot helmet to smash the glass out of the side window. Had Alam climbed into the broken window before Babbitt punched him, he most likely would have been shot.

“While illegally inside the building, she disregarded the orders of police to stay out of the Speaker’s Lobby and instead climbed through a broken window, which had just been smashed by a fellow rioter, in her attempt to access members of Congress who were being evacuated from the Capitol,” Manger wrote.

New Judicial Watch video covers 19 minutes in the Jan. 6 life and death of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt.Photos by Aaron Babbitt, Jayden X, Judicial Watch, and Sam Montoya

Byrd told Holt that he repeatedly screamed at the rioters to “get back.” Byrd was wearing a black COVID mask at the time. Other officers in the Speaker’s Lobby gave conflicting reports on whether commands were shouted to those outside the entrance.

Witnesses along the outside of the lobby entrance said they did not hear warnings or other statements from inside the Speaker’s Lobby. The crowd, which had grown to at least 55-60 people, made considerable noise. The three USCP officers posted at the door said they did not hear any commands from inside the Speaker’s Lobby. Nor were any commands heard on videos filmed in the hallway.

Aaron Babbitt said his wife, 35, who was a military policewoman in the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, would not have continued through the window if she had seen or heard Lt. Byrd.

Video showed the members of Congress were going downstairs toward the subway when Hansen and Babbitt first walked into the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby. A few members remained in the House Chamber to help guard the main House entrance, but the evacuation was otherwise complete by the time Babbitt jumped up into the window.

Manger said the lawsuit settlement “is insulting to every officer who protected the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and those who feared for their life on that dark day.”

Former lieutenant raps Manger

One former Capitol Police officer went public with his opposition to Manger’s memo. Former Lt. Tarik K. Johnson, who first posted Manger’s letter May 5 on X, called the document “partisan.”

“How should he (Manger) be allowed to take a partisan position from the chair of a police chief when some could easily articulate his behavior as an abuse of power as his rant was put on USCP letterhead and distributed,” Johnson said.

— (@)

In March, Manger announced he was retiring after nearly four years on the job. His announced last day was May 2, but a Capitol Police source told Blaze News that Manger was still on duty on May 6.

“How do we tolerate Manger criticizing the current administration in a civil matter without questioning his judgement and ability to lead a police agency that has a requirement to remain neutral and protect all members of the congressional community and visitors to the Capitol complex,” Johnson wrote, “not just those who share his political views.”

Johnson was suspended by Capitol Police for nearly 18 months after Jan. 6, ostensibly because he wore a red MAGA cap while he and and two Oath Keepers evacuated 16 police officers from inside the Capitol’s Columbus Doors. Johnson has said the cap made the crowds more receptive and helped him move up and down the east steps unmolested. He said the cap was like having a helmet for protection.

Capitol Police Lt. Tarik K. Johnson asks for assistance from retired police Sgt. Michael Nichols (right) and Steve Clayton (center). Both Oath Keepers, Nichols and Clayton helped Johnson evacuate 16 police officers from inside the Columbus Doors on Jan. 6, 2021.Rico La Starza

The suspension that Johnson said made him a virtual prisoner in his own home was really meted out because he ordered the evacuation of the U.S. Senate on Jan. 6 after the USCP Command Center failed to answer repeated radio transmissions seeking authorization, he said. Video shows just as the last senators hustled down the stairs, a raucous crowd was moving toward the Senate entrance from an adjacent hallway.

Johnson then headed toward the House and ordered members to evacuate the building. He gave Sgt. Nelson Vargas instructions over the radio on which door and stairway to use to reach the Capitol Subway System. It isn’t known why Byrd did not evacuate the House after rioters smashed the Senate Wing Door windows at 2:12 p.m. and crowds poured into the building. Byrd was the Capitol Police commander for the House and Senate on Jan. 6.

“There was no response from anybody at the Command Center,” Johnson said in a January 2023 interview. “I say even before I initiated evacuation, I say specifically, ‘We’ve got to start thinking about getting the people out before we don’t have a chance to.’ I heard no response. Then I asked for permission to evacuate. I heard no response.”

In addition to Johnson’s pleas for help, the Capitol Police dispatcher repeatedly asked for authorization for the evacuation. He was met with radio silence.

Johnson said if the evacuation of Congress had started when he first asked Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman and the Command Center for help, Byrd wouldn’t have been near the Speaker’s Lobby entrance, and the House chamber would have been empty if the crowd had breached the barricaded doors.

“I made the evacuation order at approximately 2:28 for the Senate, and then I did it maybe six to eight minutes later for the House,” Johnson said.

Manger said his department and the Metropolitan Police Department did a “comprehensive review of all the available evidence” in the shooting.

Shortly after shooting Babbitt at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6, Byrd made a false broadcast on Capitol Police radio claiming that he was taking gunfire and was preparing to return fire. The false assertion was never corrected on the air, leaving SWAT officers streaming into the Capitol to wonder if the scene was secure or if a shooter was on the loose in the Capitol. Neither the DOJ report nor the MPD shooting investigation report made reference to Byrd’s radio transmission.

Frick and Frack (left) are escorted to a meeting with Capitol Police. An unmarked squad car (upper right) arrives at the south barricade with Capitol Police officers. Officer Rick Larity (lower right) and Sgt. Sarah Smithers approach Frick and Frack for a meeting inside the squad car.U.S. Capitol Police/CCTV security video

Police did not attempt to detain any of the more than 50 people in the Speaker’s Lobby hallway to take witness statements. As far as is publicly known, none of them was detained for questioning about the shooting, and none of their witness accounts appeared in the MPD or DOJ shooting investigation reports.

Two men, nicknamed “Frick and Frack” by a YouTube personality in 2021, stood behind the police line down the stairs from the lobby entrance as four Capitol Police SWAT officers came up from the first floor.

After protesters and rioters were forced to exit, Frick and Frack approached USCP Deputy Chief Eric Waldow in the hallway and volunteered to be witnesses. As a 2024 Blaze News investigation showed, the men were escorted from the building by Capitol Police K-9 technician Bruce Acheson and taken to meet with Capitol Police detectives in an unmarked squad car at the edge of Capitol grounds.

Frack gave police a short video clip taken in the Speaker’s Lobby hallway at the time of the shooting, but was apparently allowed to leave without providing all of the extensive video he shot on the Capitol west front, inside the building, and from the front rows of the Speaker’s Lobby hallway during the melee. The man’s name was redacted in the MPD shooting report. Some brief information on him was included in an MPD investigation memo.

Video showed Frick and Frack set up makeshift ladders out of police barricades to allow protesters to more easily climb onto the balustrade of the Northwest Steps and proceed into the Capitol. They have not been publicly identified and were never arrested or charged.

Kephart said the 2021 DOJ report should have delved more into Byrd’s service and discipline record. He urged that Byrd’s shooting investigation be reopened by the Trump DOJ.

The DOJ report includes nearly a dozen factual errors, some of which were repeated in the Manger letter.

‘Significant’ discipline history

In November 2024, U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, sent Manger a letter outlining Byrd’s “significant” history of discipline cases.

In one 2004 incident, Byrd was found by the Office of Professional Responsibility to have fired his Capitol Police service weapon into the rear of a van that was fleeing his Maryland neighborhood. His neighbor was in the line of fire, Loudermilk said. Byrd told investigators he shot into the windshield as the van drove directly at him.

U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd appears to have his finger on the trigger of his service weapon while walking on the U.S. House floor as rioters broke windows at the House entrance at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Graphic overlay by Blaze News

The OPR investigation found Byrd violated the USCP weapons and use-of-force policies by firing his gun in a “careless and imprudent manner.” Byrd appealed the finding to the Disciplinary Review Board, which overturned the OPR findings, according to Loudermilk.

In another discipline case revealed in a Blaze News exclusive, Byrd was recommended for termination in 2001 for abandoning his post in House Speaker Denny Hastert’s office for a card game in a nearby cloakroom, then lying about it to Internal Affairs Division investigators.

Loudermilk’s Nov. 20 letter also detailed the favorable treatment Byrd has received by USCP since Jan. 6, including $36,000 in unrestricted retention funds, $21,000 in security upgrades at his Prince George’s County, Md., home, and a GoFundMe campaign that raised $164,206 for Byrd.

Capitol Police paid to house Byrd at the Joint Base Andrews military facility from July 2021 until late January 2022 at a cost of more than $35,000, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch Inc.

Capitol Police general counsel Thomas A. “Tad” DiBiase met with Jamie Fleet, staff director for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to discuss options to help Byrd, according to email uncovered by congressional investigators, Loudermilk said. Pelosi had earlier said she wanted Byrd “taken care of,” according to a Blaze News source who directly witnessed the statement during a meeting.

Loudermilk gave Manger a long list of questions and document requests at the close of his letter. The deadline was Dec. 4, 2024. A congressional source said Manger never replied to Loudermilk’s letter. The 118th Congress ended on Jan. 3, 2025. Five months after the start of the 119th Congress, the House has not yet established a successor committee or subcommittee to investigate Jan. 6.

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Gender-confused man allegedly planned to slay Hegseth, other Trump allies with Molotov cocktail 'because of Luigi Mangione'



A Massachusetts man was arrested at the U.S. Capitol this week after he allegedly planned to assassinate several high-ranking officials associated with President Donald Trump.

Just after 3 p.m. on Monday, Ryan Michael English approached a Capitol police officer near the south door of the Capitol building, informing the officer: "I’d like to turn myself in," a probable cause statement said. English went on to claim he had multiple Molotov cocktails and knives in his possession and that he intended to use them to kill various Trump officials.

English claimed he drove from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., with the initial intention of killing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth or Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and perhaps burning down the Heritage Foundation building, located blocks from the White House.

However, English learned en route about the confirmation hearing for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and decided to make Bessent his target, the police statement said. "Originally, ENGLISH’s thoughts were to use the small bottles of vodka to start fires and later to wrap them in rags soaked in alcohol, light them and throw them at Bessent’s feet," it explained.

When cops searched English, they discovered at least one knife, a lighter, and two Molotov cocktail-like items on his person as well as similar materials in his vehicle. They also found a receipt with the following note written on it:

Judith dear god I am so sorry. You must understand I can feel myself dying slowly b/c of my heart. This is terrible but I cant do nothing while nazis kill my sisters. I love you. This is awful. Im so sorry. I love u. Please stay alive and heal. you can. you are strong enough. F*** them for pushing us so far. you dont deserve this. Im so sorry for lying and plotting and lying. Please survive.

The message also included seven hearts, the police statement said. The probable cause statement did not clarify who "Judith" is.

English was apparently quite forthcoming with police about his motives and intentions, according to the probable cause statement. He reportedly admitted that he had left his phone at home to prevent the GPS on it from tracking his movements, that he had paid cash for an atlas to help him navigate to D.C. without his phone, and that he had dressed in disguise while purchasing the atlas to conceal his appearance.

English also apparently told authorities he had resigned himself that he would likely have to kill several Capitol police officers in pursuit of his mission and would likely die in the process. He "expressed acceptance and content with the possibility of suicide by cop," the statement said.

'I felt like I had to do this. I felt like I was on a mission.'

English was arrested and charged with unlawful receipt, possession, or transfer of a firearm and carrying a firearm, explosive, or incendiary device on Capitol grounds.

On Wednesday, English's public defender, Maria Jacob, issued a memo clarifying that English, 24, preferred the name Riley Jane. The probable cause statement from police likewise referred to the accused as "Ryan Michael 'Reily' English." Media outlets then scrambled to describe English as a woman and use female pronouns in reference to him.

They also claimed English was inspired by another high-profile suspect: Luigi Mangione, accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in early December.

"I didn’t have a plan in my mind. I felt like I had to do this. I felt like I was on a mission," English allegedly told police, according to WUSA9. "Maybe I told myself to have faith and just see where this goes, and I had been thinking about this for a while because of Luigi Mangione."

"I don’t want to hurt anyone," he allegedly added. "I don’t want to hurt people. That’s why I turned myself in."

English further supposedly told police he has only months left to live because of a congenital heart condition.

Jacob argued in documents filed Wednesday that English should be released from custody pending trial, claiming that he had no prior criminal record and simply demonstrated "poor judgment in effectuating a protest." Prosecutors countered that English's actions were premeditated and that he wanted to "send a message," though they conceded that the vodka in his possession likely would not have ignited.

English later apparently conceded detention and waived the written finding of facts, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. On Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh granted the request from the federal government for a speedy trial and scheduled a hearing for April 1.

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72 Hours In The Rotunda — How A Group Of Young Trump Staffers Executed His Inaugural Vision

72 Hours In The Rotunda — How A Group Of Young Trump Staffers Executed His Inaugural Vision

Jan. 6 journalist Steve Baker fights back tears while thanking Trump for 'ending this nightmare'



President Donald Trump made good on a major campaign promise Monday, issuing a "full, complete and unconditional" pardon for most Jan. 6 defendants, whom he referred to as political "hostages." Citing the need for further study of their cases, he issued commutations for over a dozen Oath Keepers and indicated that they too might ultimately see full pardons.

Among the estimated 1,500 individuals overall who will benefit from Trump's pardons is Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker, who covered the Jan. 6 protests and riots for his blog, the Pragmatic Constitutionalist.

Baker expressed profound gratitude to the 47th president in a Blaze Media exclusive Monday, highlighting the significance of the pardons and the "nightmare" they have ended.

"You have to forgive me if I'm a little bit emotional about what's happening right now," said Baker. "The pardons, commutations from President Trump — they don't just affect my life, they affect those of hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of people who have been far more egregiously affected by the weaponization of the Biden DOJ — call it whatever you want to."

'I'm going to start drunk-texting my FBI agent again.'

Baker was arrested in March 2024, pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor charges in November to "avoid the shaming exercise of the trial," and was set to hear his sentence in March.

The journalist noted that whereas he suffered a seemingly interminable series of sleepless nights, "so many others lost everything. They lost their homes. They lost their families. They lost their wives, their husbands. They lost their jobs. They lost their careers."

Baker suggested that the so-called justice system waged a campaign of "over-weaponization," "over-prosecution," and "over-sentencing of people who did not do anything other than just walk through an open door at the Capitol on Jan. 6."

Unlike the rioters given a relative pass for inflicting billions of dollars of damage on the nation in 2020, Baker noted that Jan. 6 defendants' lives were destroyed in many cases for briefly entering the Capitol, looking around, and snapping a few selfies.

Some of those whose lives were destroyed amid the politically charged lawfare campaign did not live to enjoy a pardon from Trump. Like Nejourde "Jord" Meacham, Mark Aungst, and Christopher Georgia, Matthew Perna took his own life in the face of the Biden DOJ's weaponized prosecution. According to his obituary, the "constant delay in hearings, and postponements [that] dragged out for over a year" broke Perna's heart and spirit. The previous year, former U.S. Marine John Anderson, another Jan. 6 defendant awaiting charges, similarly perished — just eight months after getting married.

"Thank God President Trump has come forward. He's not only pardoning those who did nonviolent, glorified trespassing, for God's sakes — that walked through and they waved a Trump flag or they said, 'USA, USA, USA' or 'stop the steal,' even," said Baker."

Audibly overwhelmed, Baker said, "Thank you, President Trump, for ending this nightmare for so many people. Thank you."

Baker noted on X Tuesday what he plans to do now that he's pardoned: "I'm going to travel tomorrow without notifying my federal pretrial services officer"; "I'm going to pick up my firearms"; "I'm going to start drunk-texting my FBI agent again"; and "there will be 'ex parte' communication with [U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper]."

While Baker, other Jan. 6 defendants, and their family members are elated over the news that the "nightmare" is over, top Democrats and their fellow travelers in the liberal media have reflexively descended into fits of rage. Those who reserved similar judgment in recent days and weeks for former President Joe Biden's last-minute pardons and commutations for family members, cop-killers, child-rapists, and other controversial figures have recycled well-worn claims that clemency for nonviolent protesters could incentivize right-wing violence and that the pardons are somehow unprecedented.

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Trump Grants Sweeping Clemency For Jan. 6 Political Prisoners After Biden Pardons Family

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