On Sunday evening, president-elect Donald Trump fired off a post on Truth Social asking, presumably rhetorically, whether President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter would apply to “the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years.”
Trump routinely invoked the “J-6 Hostages”—rioters who participated in the Capitol insurrection four years ago—throughout his presidential campaign, and vowed to free them if elected.
But on Sunday night, these words, which were Trump’s first mention of the January 6 prisoners since the election, carried particular significance. Trump had just announced that he plans to nominate staunch loyalist and January 6 sympathizer Kash Patel to run the FBI. (Current FBI director Christopher Wray’s term ends in 2027; whether Trump intends to fire him or expects him to resign isn’t clear.) Patel, a former federal prosecutor who worked in a variety of national security roles during Trump’s first term, is an author of the children’s book series “The Plot Against the King,” which is about Trump’s “Deep State” enemies, and sells pro-Trump merchandise under the brand name K$H.
“I think January 6 individuals, those in jail, those in the legal pipeline, will be ecstatic over this,” says Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who served as an adviser to the Select Committee investigating the events of January 6. “They already bought into criminal activity on January 6, now they have someone who validates it, even excuses it. I think it makes them very happy.”
Patel, who was chief of staff to acting defense secretary Christopher Miller on January 6, 2021, has pushed the baseless “fedsurrection” conspiracy theory, which claims that undercover FBI agents instigated the Capitol riot with the goal of smearing the MAGA movement.
Patel helped produce “Justice for All,” a single that features the “J6 Prison Choir” singing the national anthem (a solemn nightly tradition for imprisoned rioters), mixed with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The song became a mainstay of Trump’s campaign rallies. Patel has also proposed a “full-fledged investigation” into the January 6 Select Committee. He has even helped January 6ers via his nonprofit the Kash Foundation, which provides, among other things, legal defense funds to help “defamed American citizens.” Patel has also flirted with QAnon, defending its slogan “WWG1WGA” (where we go one, we go all), praising QAnon supporters, and even appearing on the high-profile QAnon podcast X22 Report.
Riggleman believes that Patel is Trump’s most dangerous selection to lead a major agency, on account of his blind loyalty to the former president and his public displays of interest in conspiracy theories. “I think it’s his worst pick, even worse than Matt Gaetz,” he says. “Kash Patel is simply a foot soldier for Trump.”
For the sprawling community of January 6 activists—a smorgasbord of MAGA personalities, family members of jailed rioters, and rioters who’ve completed their sentences—Trump’s nomination of Patel is an indication that retribution is coming. And part of that retribution isn’t just about granting pardons and clemency to the rioters: It’s about going after those that put them behind bars in the first place.
Since at least the 1990s and the Waco siege, the anti-government movement in America has viewed the FBI as its enemy. Trump’s first presidency and the Covid-19 pandemic took anti-government animus mainstream. That animus was turbocharged by the investigations and prosecutions of January 6-ers, as well as by the federal investigations of Trump. And the narrative that both Trump and January 6 defendants are “political prisoners” of a corrupt and tyrannical “Biden Regime,” hunted down by his personal Gestapo in FBI uniforms, took hold.
The MAGA media ecosystem and network of J6 activists believe that Patel, if he takes the reins of the FBI, will root out corruption, expose all sorts of nefarious plots designed to damage Trump, and prove that J6 was a false flag.
“The FBI deserves Kash Patel,” wrote Suzzanne Monk, a prominent J6 advocate, on X. “They earned the ass whoopin he's bringing.” “That Kash Patel pick put the traitors in our government on notice,” wrote MAGA commentators The Hodge Twins on X.
“How many FBI agents were present for J6?” wrote Representative Mike Collins from Georgia, on X. “We’re about to find out.”
Representative Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana, chimed in via a post that addressed Wray directly. “Mr Wray. Remain close to DC. Your presence will be commanded,” Higgins wrote on X. “In this Holiest of seasons, as you box up your mementos of oppression, may visions of the thousands of American J6 families you’ve destroyed dance through your head.”
Philip Anderson, an accused rioter facing federal and misdemeanor charges for January 6, said on X that they’ll have to wait and see whether Patel and Trump put their money where their mouths are. “We aren’t taking you people seriously until you end the J6 prosecutions on Day One.”
So far, beyond his Truth Social post, Trump hasn’t said much about whether he plans to make good on his promises to grant pardons and clemency to January 6ers. Some hopeful defendants have sought to delay their proceedings or even drop charges entirely. Some lawyers are unsure whether Trump would pursue a blanket pardon for everyone involved in January 6, or grant pardons and clemency selectively based on, for example, the types of crimes people are accused of.
Meanwhile, Riggleman suggests that Patel faces an uphill, if not impossible, battle to get confirmed as the head of the FBI. Patel’s former colleagues from various points in his career have questioned his competence to lead the agency. “If there’s anyone that’s sane, I don’t think the Senate will confirm him,” said Riggleman. “But then again, there are senators who are very afraid of Donald Trump and their own reelection prospects.”
