How lagging prosecutions and long jail stays are fanning the flames of Jan. 6 extremism
Carolyn Kaster/AP
- A growing "Free the Patriots" movement is fueling anti-government extremism, watchdogs say.
- The movement centers on a small number of jailed defendants in the DOJ's Jan. 6 insurrection probe.
- Long pretrial jail stays and slow-moving prosecutions are reinforcing themes of a tyrannical government.
To federal prosecutors, Zachary Rehl is a dangerous radical, a Proud Boys leader who helped mastermind the hate group's barrier-toppling, window-busting breach of the US Capitol and afterward bragged he was "proud as fuck."
But to a robust and growing "Free the Patriots" movement, Rehl and other jailed "January Sixers" are something else entirely.
They are American heroes, ripped by a tyrannical government from their homes and loved ones — in Rehl's case "an eight-month-old baby that he has never held in his hands," as his lawyer told a judge last week.
It's a reality-bending, "political prisoner" narrative, spread on far-right chat channels, at patriotic rallies, and through commissary fundraisers and "Patriot Mail Project" letter-writing campaigns.
"Free the Patriots" is already "terrifying" in its power to radicalize, according to extremism expert Alex Friedfeld, a researcher with the Anti-Defamation League.
But year-long jail stays and slow-moving prosecutions — a consequence of the Department of Justice's ongoing and massive 775-defendant investigation of the Capitol breach — are fanning the flames of hate, Friedfeld and other extremism watchdogs say.
"It's a very powerful thing they're doing," Friedfeld told Insider of the far right's outrage campaign on behalf of just under 70 "patriots" now held without bail while awaiting trial on the attempted coup's most serious charges.
"You start to think the government is the bad guy in this story," Friedfeld said of the messaging on chat platforms like Telegram, on church-themed fundraising websites, and in right-wing media like Gateway Pundit and Fox News.
"And it leads to the reinforcement of the same narratives of January 6, which is that a government run by Democrats is a threat to conservatives in America and will destroy this country."
Long jail stays, no trial in sight
The case of Rehl, leader of the Philadelphia Proud Boys, may be the most extreme — and sympathetic — example.
The 36-year-old is one of the hate group's top three "operations" planners for January 6, according to a DOJ indictment, which charges him and five other Proud Boys leaders with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election by Congress.
The Proud Boys, an all-male group known for street-brawling with leftist protesters, were the spear tip of the Donald Trump-supporting mob that attacked the Capitol, prosecutors allege.
Their members toppled the first police barrier, prosecutors say. And it was a Proud Boy, allegedly Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, NY, who first breached the Capitol itself, by busting a window with a stolen police riot shield in the shadow of the reviewing stands that were still being built for President Biden's inauguration.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Rehl was allegedly one of the group's masterminds.
According to the indictment, he helped raise $5,000 for the effort. He also handed out walkie-talkie-style radios on the morning of the riot, as 100 Proud Boys assembled at the Washington Monument. And just before 3 pm that day he entered the Capitol through a west side door that was held open by other insurrectionists.
But what the father of two did not do, at least according to the indictment, is directly engage in violence. Nor did he carry a weapon or personally destroy property.
Rehl, a Marine Corps vet and the son and grandson of Philadelphia cops, has nonetheless been locked up nearly a year in pre-trial detention.
So have his Proud Boy co-defendants save one, Enrique Tarrio. The group's national leader at the time of the attack, Tarrio was only added to the indictment and taken into custody earlier this month.
Meanwhile, there is no clear trial date in sight.
Last week, federal prosecutors said they need to push back the original trial date of May 18, hinting in a filing that still more Proud Boys may yet be added to the indictment — a possible reference to the "PERSONS 1-3" the indictment mentions without naming.
Defense lawyers say the pre-trial detentions have already stretched on too long.
Tarrio and any other new defendants "will likely need the rest of the year, if not longer, to prepare for trial," Rehl's lawyer, Hernandez, complained in a filing that asks Rehl be freed in the interim.
Hernandez declined to be interviewed for this story.
Federal Judge Timothy J. Kelly, meanwhile, has signaled that the six Proud Boys will stay put until he presides at their trial, whenever that may be.
"We've litigated the incarceration issue quite extensively," he said at a hearing last week. "We are where we are on that issue."
An alternate universe of 'patriots'
Well under ten percent of those charged in the DOJ's sweeping January 6 prosecution are locked up in pre-trial detention, according to Jonathan Lewis, an extremism watchdog who's keeping count.
"My rough number right now is 66," Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University told Insider on Tuesday.
"That's out of nearly 800 who have been arrested, and out of the 2,000 who have been estimated to have committed crimes that day," he said.
Still, "mainstream right and far right propaganda would have you think every single defendant is in detention as a political prisoner," he said. "That's just not true."
Brent Stirton/Getty Images
Rehl's online fundraising websites — through which he's raised more than $60,000, according to a December court document— are a door into an alternate universe where anti-government rioters are patriots and political prisoners.
"Zach is a father, a husband, Marine Corps Veteran, and Patriot who loves his Country," states his donation page on GiveSendGo. "He has fought for all of us, now he needs us to fight for him," says the Christian crowdfunding site.
The American Gulag website offers donation links for Rehl and other "J6ers," along with "Political Prisoner Updates." The website was created by Jim Hoft, founder of the alt-right news site Gateway Pundit, where its launch was first reported.
A third fundraising site, the Patriot Freedom Project, lists Rehl as one of 34 detained "J6ers." The site is "dedicated to bringing awareness to the plight of those being politically persecuted and supporting their families and friends," it says.
Funded by Cynthia Hughes — aunt to "J6er"and alleged white supremacist Timothy Hale-Cusanelli — Patriot Freedom has contributed $20,000 to Rehl, court papers say.
U.S. District Court handout
The "DC Gulag"
If the "Free the Patriots" movement has a single nerve center, it's the "DC Gulag," nickname for the District of Columbia jail where half Capitol riot's pre-trial detainees are being held, Rehl included.
Rehl and the 40-or-so "J6ers" who call it home share the same segregated cell block, called C2B or the "Charlie Two Bravo" block, where they sing patriotic songs, join in Bible study sessions and avidly watch the Bachelor reality shows, The Washingtonian reported in January.
A series of Telegram channels is spreading their voices beyond the jail walls.
On Tuesday, detainee Brandon Fellows took to the platform's "J6 Patriot News" channel to celebrate the end of a COVID-19 prompted ban on haircuts for the vast majority in the medium security "Patriot Pod," as they call it, who are unvaccinated.
"Victory!!!!" posted Fellows, jailed awaiting trial on charges he entered the Capitol through a broken window on January 6 — and then smoked marijuana in Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley's office.
There have been more complaints than victories.
"Yes, the abuses are numerous," "Patriot Pod" detainee Brian Mock wrote, vaguely, on the Telegram "AmericanGulagChronicles" channel last week.
"I am sure, when I am out, I will not stop until this country is what it should be or they put a bullet in me," added Mock, who prosecutors say was caught on police-worn body camera shoving a Capitol Police officer to the ground. On his GiveSendGo page, he claimed last week that his jailors are violating his civil rights before signing off, "God bless all of my fellow Patriots!"
On March 3, detainee Jeff McKellop — charged with hurling a flagpole at a Capitol cop, javelin style — claimed on the J6 Patriot News channel that jail conditions include "human fecal matter, urine stains on the floors and walls, the man spray of DNA all over the doors and walls."
Complaints from the "Patriot Pod" — including a big batch detailed in an August letter signed by three detainee defense lawyers — prompted an investigation by the US Marshalls Service, which declared the jail is fine.
But they have fired the imagination of far-right politicians.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., held a news conference in December about conditions at the jail, all the while calling the detainees politically imprisoned patriots.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
"These are elected officials lending the air of legitimacy to this cause," said the ADL's Friedfeld.
"The overall majority of J-sixers are not being held pretrial," he added.
"But they're portraying the prosecution as a nefarious plot against Trump supporters in America — and saying these folks are being held for their political beliefs and not because of their actions on January 6."
"Free the Patriots" is continuing to spread from alt-right chat channels and fundraisers into the national discourse.
Far right politicians and Fox celebrity Tucker Carlson — host of a reality-twisting "Patriots Purge" documentary in November — are now recasting the insurrection as a largely peaceful exercise of free speech, and the prosecution as proof of tyranny against not only the jailed "J6ers," but all conservatives.
"They are turning the alleged perpetrators into victims," said Friedfeld, "and making you sympathize with them."
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