Stewart Rhodes, the blindfolded founder of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers, was jailed on Monday since he was convicted of sedition for his role in the Jan. 6 attack He has been in jail since his conviction. United States Capitol Building. On Tuesday afternoon, he took a nap at my neighbor's house.
I only learned this recently when I passed by the house, which I already knew very well. A few years ago my partner and I discovered this was a January 6th people's refuge. The mother of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed during the riot, lived there with Nicole Reffitt, her wife, a Texas man who took the Guns were brought to the Capitol grounds. Occasionally, a young Jan. 6 defendant named Brandon Fellows stayed at the home. We're used to seeing them around here, and this, like much of Washington, D.C., is heavily Democratic. Before the election, the house was decorated with Christmas lights and Trump signs hung on the lawn, and no one complained. But on Donald Trump's first day as president, something got loose.
Strangers wearing MAGA hats and scarves started showing up with suitcases. Eggs were thrown at the house twice. Fellowes' motorcycle was stolen. Despite the cold weather on Tuesday, there were a lot of people on the porch, but I didn't recognize them. I spotted Fellows outside, wearing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jacket, his version of a costume troll. "We had breakfast with Stuart," he said. "He fell asleep quickly."
Rhodes is one of the most notorious J6 players for a reason. Over the years, he recruited and cultivated a militant group to resist government tyranny. His estranged ex-wife recently said she feared she and some of her children would be on his "kill list" (Rhodes' attorneys have denied this). In 2023, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for conspiring to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power on January 6.
When I met Fellows, Rhodes had just been released from prison and Trump had pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 defendants in his first hours in office. Trump has repeatedly promised that pardons were coming, but the fact that he included those accused of the most serious crimes was surprising. In fact, he chose not to distinguish between minor and serious dangers—for example, those who displayed poor judgment on a given day and were involved in a mob, versus those who planned to commit violence. (Rhoades, however, was one of 14 people who received a commutation, meaning his sentence was revoked but all his rights were not restored.)
Over the past year, I've talked to a lot of January 6th people and their families as my partner, Lauren Ober, and I create a podcast about Neighbors. I know how prosecution changed their lives, so I understand that for many of them, that first day was about sort of setting things right. Many of them accepted Trump’s framework: They considered their loved ones to be actual Hostages, held by the government. "Today, we are a free country," I heard the father of a January 6th man say through tears as he waited outside a Washington, D.C., jail for his son to be released Monday night.
In the blink of an eye, thousands of families are living the days they feared would never come. But in Donald Trump's America, one man's restoration of order means another man's abandonment of lawlessness.
On our podcast, my partner and I follow the story of Marie Johnatakis, whose husband, Taylor, is serving a seven-year sentence in a federal prison in Springfield, Missouri. Three weeks ago, when Mary's world was in chaos, Mary bought Tyler a one-way ticket home to Seattle. Her daughter kept warning her that politicians wouldn’t keep their promises — Trump wouldn’t deliver on the pardons he campaigned on — but Mary was an optimist. On Tuesday night, an hour after she picked Tyler up from jail, she sent me a photo of her and Tyler. They sat side by side, smiling, like a picture on a Christmas card. I asked her if it was hard for her to adjust to him being home, but she said no. It will be seamless. Taylor writes a letter to each of their five children every week from prison and reads to them over the phone. Mary believed that family harmony would be restored and everything would return to normal.
"I mean, it started four years ago on January 6th, we were the scum of the earth. We were 'domestic terrorists.' You know, we were the ones you should be afraid of. And then January 6th day committees and all of that, and every time Trump was criminally charged," she told me. "He's not a savior," she said of Trump. "But for a lot of us, it's a miracle. A lot of us feel like it's just one more miracle after another."
Before his second inauguration, Trump at times said he would pardon defendants on a case-by-case basis. I spoke with Republican attorneys who mentioned the idea of a review board, a Justice Department panel that might evaluate cases like Taylor's. His case is a moderate case. He was not among the hundreds of people convicted of just misdemeanors such as trespassing and disorderly conduct, but nor was he part of a small group of people convicted of seditious conspiracy charges. His charges include using a megaphone to shout "One, two, three, go!" and leading a group of people in pushing a barricade toward a line of police officers. In an alternative version of reality in which Trump shreds history in a slightly more subtle way, lawyers might be in a room arguing over what level of "assault" qualifies whom for pardon, and you can imagine how Taylor might win free. But Trump opted for a blanket pardon. Now, the QAnon Shaman is posting about his excitement about “BUYING SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUN!!!”
As I walked past a neighbor's house on Tuesday afternoon, Nicole Reffitt, the wife of the man sentenced for carrying a gun into the Capitol, was also outside speaking to a Dutch news crew. Her husband, Guy, is about to be released from prison and the family is moving back to Texas. But unlike Mary Jonatakis, Nicole seemed uneasy. Not all January 6th members were happy about the pardon. A woman dubbed "MAGA Granny" says she doesn't deserve a pardon and plans to complete her probation.
Nicole can think of a few defendants she doesn't think deserve. “I’m really a law and order girl,” she told me. "So not all charges should go away. People did really bad things that day." In the minds of many, her husband is one of them, even though he did not enter the Capitol or use his gun. She told me she was thinking of people like Jacob Long, who was captured on video swinging a baseball bat at police and throwing a riot shield in their direction, according to an affidavit. By then, Long's case had never gone to trial and he was awaiting release from a Washington jail, growing increasingly impatient. "These brutal animals will not stop and we need President Trump to release these people ASAP!!!!!" someone posted from Lang's X account on Monday. He was released Tuesday night.
Outside the Washington, D.C., jail on Monday and Tuesday, the former inmates weren't exactly running the shelter, but they were mesmerizing the crowds outside. So far, the members of the Six who were incarcerated at the Washington, D.C., jail on Jan. 22 have been released slowly, with a handful being released each day, but it has become a hub for recently released people from across the country. Robert Morss, known as "The Lego Man" after authorities discovered a Lego replica of the Capitol in his home, gained some love Tuesday night. Film crews from Sweden, Japan and Norway broadcast live outside the prison. The crowd cheered loudly every time Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" blasted from the speakers.
On Tuesday night, I caught a glimpse of Rhodes being interviewed by a right-wing YouTuber on the edge of the crowd. "This is a day to celebrate," he said. "It was great when President Trump took office. You know, like he said it himself, God saved him to save America, and I believe that's true. And then he turned around last night and saved We." Rhodes' only complaint was that his sentence was reduced. He told the interviewer he was applying for a pardon. "I think everyone deserves a pardon, no one, no exceptions," he said. "If you're a Trump supporter, you can't get a fair trial here... So if you don't have the opportunity for a fair trial, then you should be presumed innocent. That's your natural state, it's a An innocent and free man." (Rod declined to talk to me.)
This is the view that naturally follows the January 6th pardon: These are fake experiments. It was actually a peaceful day. Trump and his allies are likely to push for this revised version of history over the next four years. House Speaker Mike Johnson has announced that he will form a special subcommittee on January 6 to "continue working to uncover the full truth that the American people are responsible for."
This is true. Prosecuting the January Six doesn't require sophisticated forensics. Tens of thousands of hours of video show rioters beating police officers with whatever tools they had at hand. Five people died during and after the riots, and four police officers later committed suicide. About 140 police officers were attacked and many were no longer able to work. This week, Michael Fanone, a retired police officer, told Rhodes to get lost on CNN live and said he feared for his safety and that of his family. Fano is certainly not alone. I think of the hundreds of District of Columbia citizens who served as jurors in the January 6 cases that have now been overturned, and of the judges who presided over them.
"Political violence corrodes the republic," Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in sentencing Taylor Jonatakis. "Therefore, January 6 must not set a precedent for further use of violence against political opponents or government agencies." Lamberth, 81, whose wife died several months ago, will start this week with new cases confirmed on January 6, a father and son, but they have disappeared from the records. "This is not normal," he wrote in his sentencing letter in the Jonatakis case. I tried to ask him about the pardon but didn't hear back from his office.
During our conversation, Mary Jonatakis called Lambert one of the "lovely judges," and she meant it. I have known her for over a year and she is a gentle person. But her criticism of him, while well-intentioned, was a radical one. She compared Lamberth to Javert, the prosecutor in "Javert." Les Misérables. In her view, the judge was too legalistic to see the deeper truth, which was that a good man like her husband did not deserve to go to jail.
She and Taylor flew home today. She told me the kids would make dinner for them.