Pardoned Jan 6 rioters rally and demand more from Trump

WASHINGTON – Five years after

the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol

, several dozen rioters, including many who were jailed and later pardoned, gathered in Washington to retrace their steps and vow to keep fighting for payback, even against the Trump administration.

The “J6ers”, as they refer to themselves, have been emboldened by US President Donald Trump, who pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 1,600 people who planned or participated in storming the Capitol to protest against the results of the 2020 election.

During the Jan 6 anniversary march, they praised Mr Trump for setting them free, but were critical of his administration for not doing more for them.

“Retribution is what we seek,” said Mr Enrique Tarrio, a far-right activist and leader of the Proud Boys, one of the organisers of the Jan 6, 2021, demonstration and the Jan 6 anniversary event. “Without accountability, there is no justice.”

“I am loyal to Donald Trump, but my loyalty doesn’t extend to his administration,” said Mr Barry Ramey, who was convicted of assaulting a police officer during the Capitol riot, an act he says he regrets. He listed Attorney-General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel among Trump administration officials who “could be doing a better job”.

The marchers had a range of demands, including financial restitution and prison reform. But it is not clear how closely the Trump administration is listening.

No Trump administration officials were present at the Jan 6 march and rally, despite the White House unveiling a formal effort to paint the rioters as innocent victims of police provocation.

Many of Mr Trump’s allies who had promoted the event, like Mr Steve Bannon, were also noticeably absent – leaving Mr Tarrio as the most prominent headliner.

The anniversary march attendees also appeared to be divided over how to handle their return to the spotlight.

The Jan 6 rally and march were advertised as a memorial for Ms Ashli Babbitt – who was shot on Jan 6, 2021, as she tried to enter the House chamber – and other protesters who died during the Capitol attack. Several participants laid flowers around the Capitol in Ms Babbitt’s honor.

But the event was more boisterous and defiant than a vigil, as reunited participants cheered their pardons and jeered the police officers who had been tasked to protect the protest route, outnumbering the marchers.

“This is a gratifying celebration in defiance of tyranny,” said Mr Samuel Lazar, holding up a painting he had commissioned of himself shaking Mr Trump’s hand in front of the Capitol amid a sea of other people who had been pardoned for their actions on Jan 6, 2021.

Another throng of marchers encircled a group of DC police officers, saying “shame, shame” and calling them “murderous thugs” and “subhuman scum”. Organisers quietly thanked other police officers for keeping counter-protesters at bay.

Law enforcement officers shut down more than a mile of Constitution Avenue, which runs through a part of Washington that is home to several federal buildings, even though the marchers took up less than a block.

On several occasions, verbal altercations broke out between marchers and counter-protesters who scattered along the route, as each side used bullhorns to amplify the insults, epithets and curses they exchanged.

“Terrorists,” one man yelled at the marchers as they passed.

“Your wife’s boyfriend voted for Trump,” retorted a Jan 6 marcher.

During one heated exchange between a group of counter-protesters and marchers near the Capitol, Mr Guy Reffitt, who was a member of the militia group known as the Three Percenters and was the first Jan 6 defendant to be convicted, used a microphone and amplifier to remind marchers that they were at a memorial, and not in Washington to protest.

Several participants in the anniversary march said that they wanted to see the police officers they blamed for the deaths of Capitol rioters be brought to justice.

Others said they were looking to the government for financial restitution, citing how the months – or in some cases, years – they spent in prison had upended their lives.

“I’m building from nothing now,” Mr Reffitt said in an interview, saying his career had been ruined. “I personally feel like we should get something back to fix what they’ve taken from us.”

Still, others said they were fighting for prison reform, after experiencing the indignities and harsh conditions of federal penitentiaries.

But progress on those fronts will be a challenge. Despite having been pardoned, the march participants are still polarising, inspiring disgust from critics and caution from Mr Trump’s more mainstream Republican allies.

“To see that these criminals, these violent criminals who attacked our Capitol five years ago, would return to the scene of their crime to gloat in the face of the democracy they’re trying to overthrow – that made me sick to my stomach,” said Mr Spencer Pilcher, who held a sign that read “January 6ers Belong in Prison (and so does Trump)”, with a swastika emblem scratched out. NYTIMES