If Trump Doesn’t Pardon All J6ers, He’ll Have Blood on His Hands

If Donald Trump does not live up to his promise to pardon all Jan. 6 political prisoners, without exceptions (including those accused of being “violent” because they defended themselves against police brutality), he’ll have blood on his hands.

Jake Lang, who has been imprisoned (the majority of the time in solitary confinement) and abused for well over three years without trial, recently wrote me to warn that he is “truly afraid that if Trump doesn’t pardon ALL of the Jan 6ers, there will be more suicides from those left behind to rot in the Gulag!!” He also noted that some so-called “patriots” are, behind-the-scenes, trying to ensure that exceptions are made in the J6 pardons. He asked me to sign the J6 pardon petition, which I now ask every reader to do as well. If you think suicides could not occur, think again.

Matthew Perna, Jord Meachum, Mark Aungst, Chris Stanton, and David Homol were all Jan. 6 protestors (see photo below) who committed suicide under the tidal wave of government and media persecution and prosecution. Perna, who was in the Capitol on J6 for less than 15 minutes and was completely peaceful the whole time, was slapped with an “enhancement of terrorism” charge. Facing decades in jail, Perna despaired and tragically took his own life. But it would be fully accurate to call his death a murder—it was a death 100% induced by the Biden-Harris administration’s hideously rigged injustice system, by the Democrats’ crazy witch hunt (while ignoring Antifa terrorists and illegal alien murderers), and yes, by most Republicans’ cowardly refusal to stand up for the Jan. 6 patriots.

Many of the Jan. 6 prisoners have been in jail for years—some without trial, all suffering under egregious denial of rights, physical abuse, isolation, and psychological torture. A number of them have been sentenced to or are likely to be sentenced to 20+ years in jail under these horrific conditions. Is it so surprising if some of them are suicidal? Yes, suicide is wrong. But who of us can say with certainty that we would be able to withstand more than 20 years of heinously awful imprisonment and total separation from our loved ones, all the time knowing ourselves to be innocent?

The only reason some of these prisoners are still alive is because of the hope of a pardon. And if Trump listens to the despicable advice of those who would sacrifice patriotic Americans to a Soviet-style injustice system just so they can say they only pardoned “peaceful” protestors, then he and all those who advised him will be as complicit in the deaths of the prisoners as if they tied the ropes and kicked out the stools from under the prisoners’ feet.

And yes, yes, it matters terribly that there should not be mixed messaging on this. Trump promised to pardon all Jan. 6ers, and he needs to do so; he and those around him also need to stop issuing confusing rhetoric about only “peaceful” protestors or a “case-by-case basis.” Matt Perna despaired when the system relentlessly dogged him with the threat of life in prison. For those like Jake Lang and Stuart Rhodes who have to rely totally on the hope of a pardon from Trump, the uncertainty and possibility of not receiving the pardon is quite literally tortuous. Hell yes, it matters what is said, both publicly and privately, about J6 pardons.

Please, sign the petition. Pray as hard as you can. Urge Trump and his advisors through every available avenue to pardon these patriots, whose only “crime” was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, in entering the Capitol—the people’s house—only to face entrapment, police brutality, and then years of jail and rigged court dates. Anyone who does not try to ensure pardons for the political prisoners of the fascist Biden-Harris administration could well have blood on his hands.