January 6 Rioters Think Donald Trump’s Victory Is Their Get Out of Jail Free Card

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Brandon Fellows, 30, spent several years in jail on charges linked to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He was gun shopping online when WIRED reached him by phone on Thursday.

Fellows is a felon, and under federal law, he is prohibited from owning firearms. But he’s so confident that Donald Trump, after winning the 2024 election, will make good on his promises to pardon January 6 rioters that he’s considering purchasing anyways.

“I just wanna piss people off and get some guns,” said Fellows, who smoked a joint while propping his feet up on Senator Jeff Merkley’s desk while wearing a fake beard during the riot. “I want to get a couple: a rifle, a pistol.”

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised that, if elected, he’d grant pardons and clemency to the January 6 rioters. He yoked his own litany of legal woes, including those linked to January 6 and the prosecution of Capitol rioters, who he characterized as “hostages” and “political prisoners” of President Joe Biden’s administration. More than 1,400 people have been arrested in connection with January 6, with hundreds sentenced to time behind bars. Many of those, some of whom are serving or facing 10- to 20-year prison sentences, saw a potential Trump victory as their only realistic shot at freedom or a clean slate.

“We have brothers suffering today who are still locked in cells, despite yesterday’s victory,” the Proud Boys wrote on their Telegram channel, which was reposted by the channel for the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, who is serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy for the insurrection. “This all means nothing if they’re not free to celebrate it with us. Keep them in your prayers and continue to fight until every J6 prisoner is released from prison and this nightmare is finally over.”

Jake Lang, a January 6 rioter who attacked police with a stolen shield and baseball bat and has spent years in pretrial detention, published a statement on X about Trump’s victory on his social media. Lang, who previously claimed to lead a militia from inside jail, vowed to “forgive” his many enemies, such as “every feckless and spineless member of the GOP”; “every biased member of our DC Jury pools that railroaded us into political prisons”; “every prejudiced mainstream news anchor”; “impossibly broken and manipulated Federal Judges”; and “every crooked FBI agent that hunted down innocent Americans.”

“Repent for your sins before God and turn from your wicked, ignorant ways—Father will hear from heaven and replenish our Land when the evil repent,” Lang wrote. “There will be no bitterness in my heart as I walk out of these doors in 75 days on inauguration day.”

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Original Author: Tess Owen | Source: Wired