We reassemble for the first time in over a month to welcome an old friend and new father who rode the J6 rollercoaster all the way from exhilaration to fear to imprisonment and finally to exoneration. It's simply an incredible story. Close: We the People by New Glory (DJ Jeff) Subscribe to White Stag Athletic Club: Justice for Ash & His Family on Telegram and write to him! And don't forget his wife and girls: https://www.givesendgo.com/SupportingPSharp Do us a favor and subscribe to The Final Storm on Odysee. Based & Confused as well. And check out our pals at White Noise Radio and The Fundamental Principle. And the official Full Haus playlist on Spotify. Go forth and multiply. Censorship-free Telegram commentary: https://t.me/prowhitefam2 Telegram channel with ALL shows available for easy download: https://t.me/fullhausshows Gab.com/Fullhaus Odysee for special occasion livestreams. RSS: https://feeds.libsyn.com/275732/rss All shows since Zencast deplatforming: https://fullhaus.libsyn.com/ And of course, feel free to drop us a line with anything on your mind to fullhausshow@protonmail.com. We love ya fam, and we'll talk to you soon.
It's almost impossible to imagine the brutal roller coaster that almost all January 6th veterans have been riding for the past four and a half years.
From feverish support for an outgoing president, most of us had already written off, to the exhilaration of making history on the world's biggest stage by sending Congress critters scurrying to safety wearing Buck Rogers style hazmat suits.
to the come down of realizing that there was no plan to trust nor a possibility of success, to living with the agonizing fear that the FBI's political police might knock down your door at any moment, to the torture of languishing for in some cases years in the dungeon of the DC jail or elsewhere in federal corrections, to finally total exoneration from the apex of the executive branch,
something that many, if not most of us, doubted would ever happen.
It's enough to make the difficult journeys that many of us have traveled as a consequence of our beliefs seem almost mundane in comparison.
Well, to try to compensate for our extended absence, we make the impossible real tonight as we welcome on our friend who happens to be a J6 survivor to talk about his incredible journey from raising hell to purgatory to hell itself and then finally back to life.
So, Mr. Producer, hit it.
Welcome back, everyone, to Full House, the world's most Lazarusian show, if that's a thing, for White Fathers, aspiring ones, and the whole biofam.
It is episode 212, and I am your content creation weary host, Coach Vinstock.
Yes, that's true, but I'm not going to break out my violin this show.
Back with an hour of an interview that will hopefully be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, not to put any pressure on our special guest.
Before we meet the birth panel, though, big thanks to everyone who donated since our last show, which was the spring gardening spectacular.
And yes, I did suspend that give, send, go because if we weren't working, it didn't feel right to be passing the hat.
You know, we don't get to just say the hard R and haul in 750K.
No, not bitter about that.
That's a cool story we'll talk about another time.
We'll see if we can bring that back.
I think I can, and we'll see what our work output looks like going forward.
But this is not our last show.
We will do more.
And we'll talk about that and all the stuff that has happened in our lives and in the world in our brief during our brief interregnum real soon.
So with all that said, let's get on with it.
First up, Sam, it is damn good to see you and hear from you.
Welcome back.
It's been a minute.
It has been.
Hey, brother.
I love you.
That's the truth.
I love you too.
Yes, in this case, very limited.
Yeah, I mean, so much has happened in the last five or six weeks.
I mean, it really feels like the world is careening out of control.
It sounds ridiculous to say that or dramatic to say it, but with our guest and everything that went on then, you have those moments of different kind of news stories.
And this was one I remember at the time where you don't know where this is going.
Could they be coming for me next or you next?
It's just, you don't know what's going to happen next in this world.
The world events are such that the world seems on the brink of war.
It seems like everything's going crazy.
And it just takes your imagination somewhere, you know.
You know, the flip side of that, though, Sam, too, is that I've been completely checked out.
I will always consume the news daily, right?
But I haven't been posting a lot.
I've been observing with some bemusement everything, Shiloh Hendricks, Kanye, you know, everything going on in Washington with the maneuvering today, Alan and Trump.
And we'll talk about it in a future show, but you can always just be like, okay, that stuff is happening and I don't feel a need to post about it.
And I don't really have any influence on it.
Okay, that's interesting, but I got kids and I got a job and I got work to do and lawn to cut and stuff like that.
There's a whole balance that you have to maintain between obsessing over one and neglecting the other versus completely checking out and just being too insular.
We'll definitely talk about that next show, but it's all.
Yeah, I'm not, I mean, I'm not a super online person too.
I try to read and pay attention to what people are saying, but mainly I use the Telegram to keep up with a couple of news sites just because the events of the world are just so crazy.
You just don't know how it might affect you and what kind of crazy thing this country might do to endanger our kids or whatever it is.
So yeah, and just in the context of January 6th, a lot of us lived through Charlottesville and there weren't mass arrests on that one.
I guess they hadn't really worked up the mechanism yet to do that.
Like you say, you also have your daily routines.
And despite all these things going on, personal tragedies that have happened in these last few weeks, I mean, it's strange in a way that you get upset by something.
Things are going on around you.
But you know what?
Absurdly, life goes on.
Sometimes you don't even want it to, but it just does.
And you have to keep, you have to get up in the morning.
You have to make meals.
You have to go to work.
You have to put gas in the car, whatever, mundane or otherwise.
And it feels the strangest at those times when big events are swirling around you.
It's like life is like a wave, right?
It picks you up.
It's outside your control, picks you up and just throws you.
I think we're going to dig into that next show for sure, Sammy Baby.
Thank you so much.
And if there's one person other than Sam who has been up my rear to get the wheels back in motion, it is my good friend who I am delighted to see on camera smirking at the moment, but there's a sincere smile in there somewhere, I'm sure.
Our trusty everlast producer, I don't know, ever-ready producer, Rolo come back, but thank you.
It's good to be here.
All right.
Did you get in the fight or you got a little congestion there?
I'm blowing up your spot again.
No, I know I have, it's not doing so good, but it wasn't a fight, but it did get hit by something.
All right.
Not sure if it makes you look like a badass or a total dweeb.
Most people make fun of me for it, but what else is new?
That will not happen this show, nor will it happen in any future shows.
New policy.
No, I'm kidding.
Thank you for being with us.
And our very special and equally patient special guest.
I will simply say that he is a dear friend, a great guy, a new father who happened to get mixed up in that righteous, if dubious, hullabaloo on that infamous cold January day.
Jeff, long overdue.
Welcome to Full House, buddy.
Thank you, coach.
Good to finally be on here.
And thanks for the intro that gave me flashbacks of everything.
Yeah, I feel like I've been mentioned on this show a good number of times and it's a long time coming.
Absolutely.
The whole saga, you know, we've been comms for most of it.
I didn't know you at the time of January 6th, or I wasn't in comms with you.
And I meant every word.
What a journey.
Can't wait to ask these questions.
I got a smile on my face knowing that you are where you belong at home with your family.
And it's an incredible story.
I told Sam and Rolo, I was like, we don't have to do any preaching or analysis, really.
We just have to ask questions about this whole thing.
And I've got more perhaps than can fit in an hour.
So we should get cracking on it, especially with my Gabby guts at the top.
But it's your first time.
So you got to do the bit.
And what please, Jeff, is your ethnicity, your religion, and your fatherhood status.
Sure.
So ethnicity, European, German, English.
I don't know the whole lineage of my family.
Unfortunately, the FBI could probably tell me more about my own ethnicity than I know.
And religion, Christian, and fatherhood status.
I got one who's still in diapers and he's asleep right now.
And hopefully he'll be asleep for the duration of this call.
We'll see.
Amazing.
Yeah, I don't know what's a bigger congratulations, your newfound freedom or the fact that you have new white life under the roof.
We'll call it even.
It's all about pretty important.
I'm a blessed man.
So it's all good.
And that new white life is an incredible story in and of itself that I'll ask about a little bit later.
But has the high worn off a little bit, you know, the miracle freedom granting?
Or are you still waking up with a smile on your face every day?
I mean, I guess you could say it's worn off a little bit, but there's definitely still times like when I'm having a particularly good day or I'm just, you know, out riding my motorcycle or something.
I just think like, man, like this time last year, I was in prison at this, you know, this or that crappy spot and not knowing what I was going to be doing, you know, not knowing if I was ever going to do this again, you know, like remind us how long you might have been in.
Well, I was, I was behind bars for over a year and then I was also on house arrest for over a year.
So but if you didn't get pardoned, how long might oh, okay.
Sorry, I didn't, I didn't pick up what you said that might have been.
Yeah.
Um, uh, the judge gave me about six years.
So it was gonna be, it was gonna be a decent little, yeah, it was gonna be a decent little slug.
You know, your little boy was gonna be, yeah, he was gonna be in kindergarten or first grade by the time you got out.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was, that was a big concern of mine, you know, missing the first, you know, couple years of his life was kind of of my first child.
You know, that was kind of weighing on me, definitely.
So I'm happy to be able to, you know, come home to him.
Sure.
I know that Sam was in comms when you were under the gun and I was a occasional pen pal for you, but did Rollo ever write or does he deserve no credit here whatsoever?
He's fasting.
I can see him shaking his head.
No, he's festing up.
New policy broken off.
Yeah.
Moral support.
No support for the political prisoners there.
Well, you know, I was a big Kamala Harris voter and I thought that accelerationism, that was, you know, you know, that's, it's what you needed to become, you know, the next step.
He was riding with Biden from the get-go.
I did finally write to Ash in England a week or two ago.
That had been on my list for way too long.
I promised I was going to do it finally.
Anyway, let's get on though with Jeff's story.
We're a little bit chatty tonight, folks, because it's been over a month since we last recorded.
Not because anything bad happened.
I'm in great spirits.
It's just a little, you know, fatigue with everything.
Anyway, let's go back to the origins, Jeff.
I mean, your decision to go.
What were you politically or ideologically at the time?
For guys like us, we had written Trump off by that point and said he deserves whether the election was stolen or not.
And I still lean heavily toward there was a lot of shenanigans that probably skewed it.
We were like, there's no way, especially Charlottesville, guys.
Like, we're not going to January 6th to put our asses on the line for this guy, but you did.
And you lived to tell the tale.
What was going on in your mind and all that back then?
Yeah, sure.
Well, there was a lot going on.
I mean, we had just, I mean, we were still going through COVID and we had just gone through the whatever you want to call it, the summer of love with the post-Floyd incident.
So there was all that going on.
I would say at the time, I was kind of like a light, a right-leaning Civnat, you know, kind of going more right.
I was part of one of the groups that was fairly prominent on January 6th.
So, you know, I was kind of a part of that scene, kind of what you might have called the alt-right scene back then.
And like a lot of our guys, I was kind of souring on Trump by then, just, you know, not really a whole lot going on with his first term.
But, you know, I felt like something was going to happen on January 6th.
So, you know, I was really close to DC myself.
So I could kind of feel the energy starting to warm up as the date got close.
And I had some tentative plans with some friends to go there.
You know, and we didn't know what was going to go down.
We were just planning to go to the Stop the Steal rally.
So I had tentatively planned to ride in on the train with some guys, but I actually ended up canceling my plans with them.
And then I ended up impulsively going, deciding to go like on the day of, which I can talk more about that later.
But yeah, so there was kind of like a mixed bag of things going on.
It wasn't like, you know, I was gearing up for weeks in advance.
Like, you know, like, I mean, obviously the prosecutors claim that that was how it was.
You know, that's the story they want, you know, everyone to believe.
But it was a lot more for me, it was a lot more spontaneous.
And so you were, I mean, we're not BSing the audience to say, yeah, you weren't gearing up to riot, but you did mention that there was excitement building.
Do you, I mean, did you really think you were just going to go to a Trump rally and be like, yeah, Mr. President, and go home?
But you had a feeling in your bones that something was brewing and you were sort of drawn.
Like Charlottesville was like a tractor beam.
I knew it was going to be a big deal.
I didn't know it was going to go as badly as it did, but I just felt I had to go to be there with my friends and to put on, you know, to be supportive of the cause.
Sounds roughly similar for you.
That is, yeah, that is very much how I felt.
It, you know, I could tell that on the day of, it definitely seemed like some things were probably going to happen.
And I was like, I don't know what's going to happen, but there could be some historical things happening.
And I kind of want to at least be there to see it.
Sure.
And, you know, what really kind of nudged me to go was that I was aware that some of my friends were there.
And once I knew that some of my homies were in there, I was like, I'm there.
I'm going.
You know what I mean?
So lesson for the audience, you know, sort of the hazardous bet of supporting your friends versus getting in some real serious hot water.
It's the duality of man's responsibility to his brothers.
Yeah, I definitely, yeah, there was definitely a little bit of that.
Like, I don't know, thinking I'm like Mel Gibson in the Patriot, you know, like, well, this is, this is the new American revolution.
It might be going down, you know, I just, it's right here.
Right now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We started by talking a little bit about that earlier.
This, so you had a sense of that, that maybe this was going to actually turn into something.
It's easy to look back on it and second guess it, but the excitement, people are ramped up with energy and ready to, quote, do something, unquote.
Did you get swept up into that?
Did you believe some kind of momentum was building to something happening?
Possibly, but it was never a thing where it was like, okay, like we're going to, we're going to take it was never like, oh, this is definitely, it was just kind of like, you know, okay, I'll go to DC and see what, you know, what's going on.
And now, mind you, I had been to several rallies before.
So it was not out of the ordinary for me to go to DC for a rally and, you know, to kind of be ready for whatever.
You know, we had kind of, you know, semi, you know, run-ins with like Antifa and stuff.
And so part of it was like a little bit of just, you know, being in kind of like a political scene.
And, you know, this is, this is like another rally, but this one was definitely, you know, obviously bigger than most of the other ones.
One of perhaps a couple million dollar questions, Jeff, and maybe you don't want your wife to hear the answer to this one, but knowing what you know now, would you have, would you go back and do it all over again the way that you lived it?
Well, I don't, um, I don't regret it, you know, given the way things worked out.
Um, okay.
I don't regret it.
I would probably go back, but I would have been more cautious.
I think I would have tried to stay out of the most unavoidable.
I get into that more.
Jeff, can you say something about like we would hear accounts of like the January 6th guys would all sing the national anthem at the last thing in the evening?
And what was the camaraderie or solidarity between prisoners?
Or, you know, comment on that if you could.
Yeah, sure.
So, yeah, singing the national anthem, that was something that we did in the DC jail.
And in the DC jail is where they had all of the J6 guys who were basically in like the pre-trial process at some point, whether they were waiting for sentencing or they were waiting for a trial.
So, yeah, I arrived at the DC jail after I pled guilty and I was there for several months waiting for my sentencing.
And yeah, they had all of us J6ers in one unit together, which was pretty wild.
There was usually between 20 and 30 of us.
And yeah, every night at 9 p.m., we sang the national anthem.
We actually did a podcast from inside the jail using our little jail tablets that they gave us.
We would make a phone call to folks on the outside that were broadcasting a podcast and the national anthem was part of that every night.
Gotta give credit to all of the support groups and the family members who kept the flame alive for all you guys.
It was really impressive.
They did a great job on the propaganda and curse the jail for all eternity.
I guess I'll ask about you ended up at a federal correctional institute, but we could talk about the DC jail.
Was it as bad as advertised?
I don't want you to, you know, say, it wasn't that bad.
Those guys were all lying.
Maybe guys had different experiences.
Some of them sounded, you know, like Abu Ghraib, DC style, but your experience in the DC jail.
Yeah, sure.
My experience was not too bad.
I think I had kind of gotten there after they had kind of cleaned up their act a little bit because there was like a decent amount of publicity.
I mean, you had Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think at one point do a visit to the jail.
And so they had a lot of pressure from, you know, the J Sixers and their families and the supporters and stuff.
So my experience wasn't too bad, but I will say that it's not a good run, a well-run jail at all.
It's definitely a dangerous jail.
But as for me, I was in the Patriot pod almost the whole time.
So it was pretty chill.
You know, we kind of had it sort of easy in our section, but I would definitely not want to spend any time in the, you know, the main part of the DC jail, that's for sure.
Did you cringe at all singing the national anthem after the United States government had just sent you to that jail or was it sincere?
I can imagine.
Personally, I'd be like, oh, you're asking a lot here.
Patriot potters.
You'd think you'd, you would think that you would cringe.
And there was like one or two guys that wouldn't do it.
But for me, it was just the camaraderie of being with those other, you know, 20 or 30 men.
And it was, it was cool.
Yeah, it was cool.
A little solidarity, power through song.
Go ahead, Sam.
Well, there's the idea like this is our song, not their song.
I know for myself, I grew up with a lot of resentment towards the country and towards patriotic symbols.
But in recent years, I'll call it, you know, like with Patriot Front, I have to admit, I feel a little bit of inspiration at the way that they use the American flag and other, you know, symbols of the country.
So I think you can look at it that way.
Sure.
To rewind a little bit, Jeff, is it fair to say that you had the exhilaration that day and perhaps for a couple of days after?
And then after a while, it sort of hit you.
Oh, oh, snap, I'm in pretty big trouble or I could be.
Yeah.
So it was interesting because, you know, on the day of, I'm kind of, you know, I'm at the Capitol and I'm kind of thinking in the back of my head, I probably shouldn't be here.
Like, you know, there's like, you know, tear gas flying and stuff.
This could get me in a lot of trouble.
But then I was also thinking like, well, you know, this is just kind of an assembly and it's, you know, it's sort of turning into a riot.
You know, usually if you're in like a riot, you just want to not get arrested there.
You know, as long as you don't get arrested on the spot, you're pretty much good to go.
Right.
I never would have thought that they would, you know, the government would just relentless, relentlessly pursue us for, you know, the entirety of the Biden administration with unlimited resources.
So, you know, the day of, I was just kind of thinking, okay, as long as the cops don't, you know, snatch me up right here, I'm okay.
But then, you know, just as things got more chaotic and I eventually left, I kind of like, I kind of left thinking like, oh, wow, that was, that was really crazy.
You know, I better get out of DC at some point tonight because they might, you know, who knows what's going to happen.
And then in the in the few weeks after, after the fact, one of my friends who I had actually just ran into on the steps of the Capitol, I didn't, we didn't know that the other one was going to be there.
I'd ran into him.
He got snatched up.
And so when he got snatched up, I was, that's when I was like, oh, man, this is, this could be bad because me and him were kind of in the same vicinity.
And yeah, so then I, so then that's when the long just kind of, you know, looking over my shoulder and, you know, waking up thinking, is it going to be today?
Going to bed thinking, you know, am I going to be woken up by that knock on the door?
So doesn't it say something about the desperation of our government that they have to expend such resources and make this such a priority that, you know, compared to other things, right, that are going on.
Totally political, totally political political process of persecution, pure and simple.
And it says something that they are desperate, I think.
Yeah, I would say so.
I mean, I would say, you know, if the government had more legitimate control, they wouldn't need to, you know, relentlessly persecute any kind of dissidents, right?
I mean, that was the message I took from it.
Or yeah, the other thing is they could just, you know, be like, issue an arrest warrant and bring you in and dispense with the creative legal machinations that they use to lock you guys up for as long as humanly possible.
You know, for the audience's edification, Jeff was not a pure Boy Scout that day.
There was a certain rambunctious exuberance that took hold of him.
But, you know, he didn't hurt anyone or do anything that, you know, change the races.
Imagine if we flip the sides and these were liberals or whatever, slaps on the wrist at best.
What's going on right now?
We're fighting the ice, the ICE agents, these ICE agents getting attacked by leftists.
What about that?
Or 10 years of Antifa or the BLM riots.
Yeah, all that.
You know, that was like actual real violence against people and maiming people and deaths and millions upon millions of dollars of damage.
Yeah.
The Charlottesville flamethrower guy, the bike lock attacker, the flashlight.
No, it all failed.
They did get bike lock attacker, but he did get a slap on the wrist.
But they did get him after a lot of pressure.
He was an associate professor at Diablo Valley College.
Very good, Rolo.
Thank you.
After much gnashing of teeth and wailing, yes, they did finally take him in probably reluctantly.
I'm surprised some of those Charlottesville Cretans didn't argue, you know, mental retardation to get out of their, like, well, they get probation.
Anyway, I digress.
You have to be, you know, a certain melanin.
Yeah, some of them were.
So Jeff's living with the world's biggest albatross around his neck.
Think of all the things that you, the challenges, you know, illness, job insecurity, debt.
I imagine that living with the fear of federal agents busting down your door in the middle of the night unannounced is one of the worst.
So a hat tip to you, brother, for living through that.
And then ultimately, that day did arrive.
How let's, whatever you're comfortable with sharing, not to encourage our fellow listeners to avoid law enforcement, but how did they get you?
Sure.
I'm pretty sure that the main way that they got me was through facial recognition.
They had they had surveillance all over that building, which, you know, you would expect with it being the U.S. Capitol.
But they had photos and videos from all kinds of crazy angles.
I mean, they must have had drones and undercover, you know, agents all over the place because they pretty much were able to photograph almost everybody's face, you know, in a high-res photo or grab it from a screenshot.
So I think what they did was they took some photos from my face and they ran it through some software.
And they, I think, were able to find a picture of me from the company's website that I was working for at the time.
Okay.
And they went there.
I'm pretty sure they went there and asked some people and they found someone who was able to confirm and verify, you know, who I was.
And I think that kind of sealed my fate.
Interesting.
It wasn't yourself.
It wasn't your cell phone.
Did you bring it that day?
I did bring my cell phone.
I mean, I was, you know, I was kind of practicing trying to be kind of like OPSEC, like, you know, try not to have my cell phone on, but I was, I was teching people.
I'm sure that they would have, you know, been able to, I mean, they were geo-fencing people.
You know, they were using the cell phones.
And yeah, but I'm pretty sure the main way that the reason they got me was through facial recognition and tracking me down that way.
And you were partially messed up for some of it.
And then the hustle and the bustle or needing fresh air.
Yeah.
You were revealed.
I definitely got a nice face full of tear gas.
So I think they had me pulling the mask down trying to like splash water in my face.
So they did.
Yeah.
They got me that way.
Son of a bitch.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
All right.
Well, food for thought for people going forward, wherever you may be in the country or in the world.
So you go back, you know, you go back to work.
You're probably a little bit more radicalized as a result of that day and Trump basically leaving you guys out to dry.
I assume, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Did you sour on Trump further after, you know, he went, as I said at the time, he went back to the White House to watch Fox News in his jammies while you guys were getting hammered.
How did your opinion change after J6?
Yeah, so it definitely did kind of lead me to take more of a black pill, you know, attitude towards just everything in general.
Sure.
And yeah, a little bit of souring regarding Trump.
You know, people were saying, oh, why didn't he, you know, why didn't he, you know, pardon the J6ers before he left office?
I'm not sure, you know, legally how much power he would have had to actually do that, you know, being an outgoing president.
I think, I don't think, I think Biden is the first one to like proactively pardon people, but I could be very wrong about that.
I'm obviously not a legal scholar, but yeah, definitely in the days after J6, I was like, oh, like, you know, Trump is not, you know, Trump wasn't the guy we'd hoped for.
And just everything seems to just be going the wrong way.
And, you know, when is it going to stop?
It was, it was definitely kind of a dark time for sure.
Understood.
Yeah.
Well, we'll come back to that later too.
Do you feel looking back that you were naive?
A little bit.
You had hoped for better or?
I don't know if I would say naive so much as just kind of being maybe a little too reckless.
Yeah.
And on the pardon issue, too, at the time, I remember, or maybe shortly after, I could understand a little bit.
I'm not interested in carrying water for Trump on the issue, but I could understand some fog of war.
There's a million things going on.
Stop the steal.
It seemed like he was legitimately trying to stay in office.
No idea that one, Biden was going to get in, and that two, that the entire weight of the FBI was going to be dropped on a couple thousand Americans who were there that day.
So a little bit of leeway there or understanding, but he could have, I think, for sure, said I hereby pardon anyone involved in the fracas of January 6th.
Rolo, sorry, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say, isn't being reckless being naive?
Not necessarily.
He rides a motorcycle.
That's reckless, but not naive.
Yeah, I don't know.
They're a maybe like a psychology of the mob, right?
Like people are with if people are doing the most things.
Let's say if people are doing quote things unquote, then it gets easier to do those same things because people get a sense of anonymity when they're in a crowd, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think that's a well-established thing that I don't necessarily blame our pal for getting caught up in it.
Oh, no, definitely not.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
There's, and, you know, there's also like adrenaline.
You know, you're getting like blasted with tear gas.
And I mean, yeah, it was, it was a crazy scene.
So, I mean, you can chalk some of it up to mob mentality or what have you.
But yeah, there was just a lot going on.
It remains some of the most incredible domestic political disturbance footage of all time.
I mean, whoever you like, you know, scaling those walls of the Capitol and breaking through the doors.
And yeah, I mean, you had like, you, I mean, there was like some guys that were dressed up in like colonial military regalia, like George Washington's army type of uniforms with, you know, drums and everything and tricorn hats.
I mean, it was just nuts.
And then you have, you know, you have like the old, you know, conservative, you know, grandmas, right, that are just like caught in the middle of it.
You know, it's just a total madness, really, is what it was.
All right.
Very important question that I am deeply interested in.
Not asking for a friend or whatever, but you got to tell us about the raid.
What time it was, how they came in.
You know, this is a situation where people have died in the past because they don't know it's coming and they might think it's a house invasion.
Dogs have been shot.
Things have been stolen.
Houses destroyed.
Whatever you feel comfortable telling us about that night in the early morning.
Yeah.
So it was, I believe it was just before 6 a.m.
And it was kind of like in the dead of winter.
So it was pitch black outside.
And yeah, me and me and my me and my lady were just fast asleep.
And I just remember being woken up by a really loud bang.
I thought that a transformer nearby had exploded because it was just a huge bang.
And so we, you know, we both shot up awake and, you know, I peer out the window and I see the red and blue flashing lights.
And my wife says that she heard them say my name and say, you know, come out of the house.
We had you surrounded.
Sorry for laughing.
Yeah.
No, the movie is fine.
No, it's fine.
What was the bang?
What was the bang?
Did they try to knock in the door or they set off a flashbang or what?
I think it was like a flashbang type of device, but I mean, I don't know, honestly.
It might have just been them knocking because they didn't beat the door down.
So, you know, so if I look out the window, yeah, I mean, I get, I get the sinking feeling of, oh, gosh, it's finally happening, right?
It's not the Transformer.
That was naive, though.
That's, by the way, probably a local electrical mishap, not the FBI surrounding my house.
Sorry for laughing, buddy.
No, it's fine.
I can laugh about it too now, you know?
Okay.
It's all in the past now.
But yeah, you know, like I was hoping, like, oh, God, I hope that's for like a neighbor, right?
Like, I hope the police are just at a neighbor's house for some reason.
But no, it was, it was sorely for me, you know?
So I get up and I, you know, I walk into the living room and I see like just the floodlights just blasting through every window of the house.
And I'm like, okay, yeah, this, I, I think I know what's going on.
So, um, do you know roughly how many?
And was it FBI and local PDs?
Um, there were cars parked all the way down to the neighbor's house who lives a good distance away.
I mean, it was the cavalry.
Yeah, it was like over 30 or it was like over 30 cars, and they had armored cars on the front yard.
Um, they had like an APC parked right in front of the front door.
So I had no idea.
Yeah, so they're, yeah, so like I, I just, I just cautioned, you know, I hugged my wife and I'm like, you know, it's going to be okay.
I love you.
I kissed her and, you know, I just opened the door and, you know, I just slowly opened the door and I just, you know, I showed them my hands because I figured like these guys have you don't want to reach in for your wallet to get your ID?
That would probably be a bad idea.
I mean, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's one of those things.
It was crazy because like, you know, knowing in the back of your head that it might happen and you're thinking, like, what am I going to do if it does happen?
You know, but then, you know, like, am I going to go out in a blaze of glory or something?
Luckily, that thought didn't enter my head that morning.
And I think it was just so jarring that it really, it just felt dreamlike to me.
You know, it didn't really feel like I was really there.
It kind of felt like being in like a dream or watching a movie or something.
So what time was it again?
It was like, oh, dark 30, is what they say in the military, right?
Just insane.
It was dark.
I mean, they claim that, you know, they claim that they waited until like exactly sunrise, but I mean, it was pitch black outside.
So it was, you know, sometime between 5 and 6 a.m., I think.
And to underscore the severity and the overkill of having an APC and dozens of armed agents surrounding your house, you had like one little infraction on your criminal record before this, as I understand it.
Right.
Yeah.
I had never had any convictions of any crimes.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Even all that is like a big show because let's say they had sent you a letter and they say, we expect you to report to the whatever DC jail at a certain time and a certain day.
And if not, then we're going to send the guys or whatever.
You would have, you would have turned yourself in because what other choice do you have?
Yeah, that's, you know, that was kind of what I was thinking.
It was like, like, what's the big show about to scare your family and scare your neighbors and blacken your name?
Scare the neighbors.
Scare the neighbors.
Maybe they wanted to let the neighbors know how much of a scumbag you are because they had to send this many armed men out.
Like, that's how dangerous you are.
Oh, the neighbors definitely thought that I had killed somebody or something like that.
Of course.
That's what they told me later on.
They were like, yeah, well, that was crazy.
Are you on reasonably good terms with the neighbors?
I know it's a segue, but they're cool enough with it now.
Very much so.
Yeah.
I live in a pretty rural area.
And yeah, most people are most people are friendly regardless of the circumstance.
The people that, you know, the people that know me know that I'm not, you know, some terrorist or something.
So yeah, well, that's something I wanted to mention about the coach had that one blurb there about having this albatross truss around your neck.
Is it an albatross around your neck?
I have found and even bragged about before, you know, getting the white power discount of many, you know, many places I go.
I'll go somewhere.
Hey, this bottle of whiskey didn't have a price on it.
How about 10 bucks?
You know, and then I got my shirt on and the person, oh, yeah, sure.
You know, I've many times I've been, you know, there's there's got to be a tremendous amount of sympathy or even what's the word, agreement, you know, support for the position you took and everything that happened.
So, you know, this may not be any kind of albatross because, you know, even in terms of getting jobs or getting things like that, you might get a job because of this.
Fair.
Yeah, I did mean just while he was waiting for that knock at the door, Sam, but fair question about, but yeah, is it still there?
Do you feel it, Jeff?
Or do you like a free man?
Um, you mean like uh the like public sentiment, like what people think about, yeah, yeah, it's I don't know.
I don't really make a big deal of the J6 stuff.
And um, like the people that have known me throughout, you know, they know what I went through.
And I think most of the people in my life were, you know, either either openly supportive of me or, you know, not hostile towards what I went through.
But it's a little bit of, it's a little bit of a mixed bag.
You know, I'm sure that there, you know, there's some people that are like, yeah, I can't believe he got mixed up in that.
But there's definitely plenty of other people that were like, yeah, you're a good guy.
I can't believe they did that to you.
You know, you're obviously still, you know, I still want you to, you know, come work for me or come to our church or whatever, you know, what have you.
So yeah, I would think of anything, it says that this is a good guy.
Badge of honor now for half the country, probably.
Got to go back to it, Jeff.
Take me through.
So they surrounded the house, but didn't knock in your door.
The bang, we're not sure what it was.
You come out into the glare of the lights with your hand up.
What happens after that?
Yeah.
So yeah, they're, I mean, they, they just have, I guess they had like, you know, a point man or whatever, you know, like they had guys like right there, like, you know, just giving instructions.
I mean, it's kind of what you would imagine when, you know, if you imagine someone being taken into arrest under like a high-stakes situation, you know, basically like the guns are drawn, they're, you know, yelling commands and you just do it.
I mean, they, they had, like I said, they had that APC parked right in front of my door.
So I like, they told me to like kneel and like kneel walk in front of it.
It was kind of, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, but kneel walk backwards.
Yeah, what you can't do the thing.
He's resisting arrest.
Yeah, like it had like, I think it had like the battering ram mounted on it, like ready to go.
So I think I had to crouch under that.
Yeah.
It's, it was, it's, I was so, I was so out of it that I wasn't for one guy.
Yeah.
For one, for one guy who is transparent.
No criminal history.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, yeah, it was nuts.
So still incredible.
Yeah.
So they put, you know, they put like soft cuffs on me or whatever.
And then they, they told my wife to come out.
You know, they do the same thing to her.
They just put like Ziploc cuffs or whatever on us.
And then they just kind of sit us on the bumper of one of the armored cars.
And it's freezing out there.
It's like it had been snowing previously.
So like the ground is just wet and it's freezing cold.
Like we're both shivering.
And so they, you know, they send their teams in to clear the house.
And like they're asking me questions like, do people live in those outbuildings out there?
And I'm like, no.
And we're like, we're like, just please don't shoot our dog because we had a puppy at the time.
Like a brand new puppy.
We're like, please don't hurt the puppy.
Like he's locked up.
He's not going to attack anybody.
Like, don't shoot him, please.
Don't blame him.
Yeah.
So, um, so they cleared the house and uh, they let us come back in.
And, you know, they walked me back into my house.
I'm still handcuffed.
And there's just dudes in full kit, you know, full military kit with assault rifles and body armor.
They're masked up and they're already tearing through the whole house.
And they're asking me, like, are there any weapons in this room?
Blah, blah, blah.
And so, you know, that's all going on.
I'm just like, what the heck, man?
Like, I'm trying to process it.
You know, I'm just kind of like, you know, kind of like shell-shocked a little bit, trying to run, run through my head of what's going to happen.
And wifey knew that this was a possibility, right?
Probably hoping it wouldn't happen, but yeah.
She did.
Yeah.
I did.
I did.
I did prepare her for, you know, the possibility of this, of this turn of events happening.
So she was, she was pretty, you know, level-headed.
We were both pretty level-headed.
Obviously, nervous.
Now, listen, wife, the government thinks I might be David Koresh.
So, you know, come in with a fire.
Hey, baby.
Just make sure you slip out the bag.
Yeah.
You remember that one day back in January?
That may come back to haunt us.
So she's a good woman for sticking by.
It just has to be said, of course, yeah, through the whole thing.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Yeah.
So they, so they separated me and me and the wife, and they take me into the kitchen.
And I'm like, okay, you know, they're going to try and like interrogate me at some point.
Right.
And so I guess like the lead agents came and introduced themselves briefly.
And there was a guy that said he was from like the Joint Terrorism Task Force in, you know, a major city nearby.
And he was like, I want to, you know, I want to ask you some questions about January 6th.
And I was like, I was like, I just want to talk to my lawyer.
Oh, very good.
Yeah.
I was on Benton Edel.
No, no, I said, I, I was actually like starting to fall asleep, I think, because I think I was having like the adrenaline dump.
Yeah.
You know, if like the adrenaline starts to wear off and then you start getting drowsy, I think I was like barely able to hold my eyes up, but I was just like, I want to talk to my lawyer.
So as soon as I said that, they were like, okay.
Okay.
Okay.
You're going.
And I was like, where am I going?
They're like, you're going to DC.
I'm like, okay, great.
Yeah.
So they let me, they grabbed a change of clothes for me and pretty much just rushed me out of there.
And my last words to my wife were, These people aren't your friends.
Don't answer any of their questions.
Don't talk to them.
Which I just, I had to yell because I didn't even know where she was.
I think she was in one of their cars at that point.
So I just kind of yelled it as I'm being walked out.
And yeah, they put me in the car and, you know, we started driving down to DC at sunrise.
You know, the sun's coming up and like we're driving through the hills of my area.
And one of the agents is like, wow, this is a really beautiful area, you know, because it's like sunrise.
And I'm thinking like, yeah, it is a beautiful area.
And you guys are like taking me out of here and trying to keep me away from my home for however long.
Who knows?
Of course.
So, yeah.
Did you get a sense that those guys were just doing their jobs?
Was there zeal in their eyes to come get a bad guy?
Any impressions from that?
I couldn't, I couldn't make out anything like that at that point.
I think they were all pretty much just business at that point.
I mean, I guess, you know, when they do something like this, they, you know, they raid somebody's house.
They're all, they're all just worried about, you know, something going sideways, right?
Like some, you know, like the guy pops out of, you know, pops out of a door.
He pops out of the closet just spraying bullets or something.
Right.
I think they were just trying to, you know, I didn't get a feel for those guys at that point.
And they took you straight to DC Central or was it a federal facility?
There was, yeah, they took me into DC and they booked me somewhere.
And they're like, booked, they're doing some kind of booking process.
They're taking fingerprints.
And one of the agents is asking me questions.
And I was kind of trying to dodge the questions because I'm thinking like, you know, what's going on here?
I was thinking at any moment.
You know, I kept thinking like they're going to try and juice me for information.
They're going to try and interrogate me.
Who are you?
You know, I was like, I was like, when does the game start?
Right.
I was like, they're going to try and play some tricks, like getting me talking and stuff.
But it never really did.
You know, like, I guess they're, I guess the only time that they were going to try and get anything out of me was when we were in my house.
But, you know, I saw, I saw the way they rolled up with, you know, 30 cars, guys with assault rifles and stuff.
And I was like, they're not just here to interview me.
Like, they're taking me no matter what.
You know what I mean?
Like, oh, yeah.
He kind of, like, I think he kind of like, when he asked me the question, like, I want to ask you about J6, like, I think he kind of wanted me to have the impression, like, oh, maybe if I talk, I won't be arrested today.
But I was like, first of all, I'm not talking.
And second of all, like, there's no way I'm not getting arrested today.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, you've done been arrested.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, if they just wanted to talk, they would have just sent a couple agents to knock on my door or call me or something, you know?
So, right.
Yeah.
Good situation while we're in this.
Go ahead, Rola.
How much do you think it costs them to arrest you?
I don't even know, man.
I mean, anytime the government does anything, they, they, the, the budget is just so high ball.
Well, yeah, but I'm just thinking how many people spend many guys.
Yeah.
And I mean, I've, I've talked to J Sixers where there was like helicopters overhead and I mean, helicopter fuel is not cheap.
Yeah.
I mean, with with Biden's DOJ, like it was just like carte blanche to go after us J6ers.
I mean, they did not hold anything back.
They just gave them unlimited resources.
And that's how they were able to get so many of us.
In hindsight, it's good that you did not take Solzhenitsyn's adage or wistful rumination about if only when the knock at the door came, we hadn't, you know, attacked them with whatever we had, the kitchen knives and the fire pokers.
Yeah, because you're here to tell the tale now and you wouldn't have been otherwise.
Thank you very much for taking us through that.
Now, when you said, I want to talk to my lawyer in the, you know, handcuffed in your living room or whatnot, did you have one at the time or did you have to do this all, you know, public defender, look for a private attorney?
How'd that work?
Yeah.
So I met my lawyer that day.
And you already had one lined up.
No, no, I did not have one lined up.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it was public the whole way.
Yeah.
So basically when, you know, when something like this happens and you ask to talk to your lawyer, they, I mean, they basically have to bring you an attorney to speak with before they can do anything else with you other than book you.
I mean, you, you know, that's part of your constitutional rights, as far as I understand it.
So I met my lawyer.
I believe I was in the dungeon of the federal courthouse.
Actually, I know that's where I am because I had to go through there every time I had a court appearance.
So, you know, it was probably late morning, early afternoon at this point.
And, you know, they take me into a different little room and I meet this lady.
And I double checked with her because she started asking me questions about like where I was that day.
And I'm still, I'm still thinking like they're going to play some games to interrogate me.
So I'm like, I'm double checking.
Like, you are my lawyer, right?
Like, you're not like a cop, right?
And she's like, Yes, I'm a public defender.
Like, you know, here's my card.
Like, I've, you know, I'm representing other J6ers, you know.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Good business for her, I'm sure, at the time.
Or, yeah, obviously, she had a lot of authenticity of the lawyer.
Um, she was an Asian woman.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh, psychology at the time, Jeff.
Be honest.
Were you metaphorically crapping your pants thinking my life is over?
This is the worst day of my life.
Uh, were you taking it in stride?
Some combination?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, those thoughts are definitely running through your head.
Like, you know, it's all over.
Like, everything and you know, I'm just, you know, my life, because you don't know what's going to happen.
So, I guess a big part of me was just thinking, like, man, whenever this is over, like, I'm not going to have a life to go back to.
Like, I'm just going to have to live out the rest of my days as some like mountain recluse or something.
You know, I'm going to be living with Tariah for the rest of my life.
Like, it's just, you know, yeah.
Well, there's a lesson in there, right?
A lesson for all of us, which is it's one day at a time.
You know, you, I don't know what will be happening tomorrow.
So you have to make the most of right now, these next few minutes, even could be the most important minutes of our life.
Yeah.
Amen.
Not to beat or not to get too far into the weeds.
So you get arrested and you get charged, I assume.
And then you got home arrest essentially before sentencing.
My chronology may be off a little bit, but tell us a little bit about how you got to go home for some significant period of time, whereas other people got locked up.
That's because you sang to the powers that be, right?
Yeah.
Never, I'll never talk.
No.
Yeah.
So it took a while, actually.
It took a couple of weeks before I got bonded just due to just the way the court hearings worked out.
When you get arrested, you get a bond hearing, which is where you go before a judge or a magistrate.
The magistrate said we're going to detain him.
A couple of days later, I got to see a real judge.
And that's where both sides argue their case.
So the government argues why you should be detained.
And my lawyer argues why I should be able to go home during the, you know, for the pretrial process.
The judge actually wasn't able to make a decision on the first hearing.
And she was very biased against me and all J6ers in general.
Because which judge was it?
She was, I can't remember her name.
She was not the judge that I ended up with for the main part of my case.
Abby Hitchwitz.
Yeah.
She, yeah, I don't even remember.
I think, yeah, a woman.
It's not that important.
Yeah, it's not that important.
But yeah, she, you know, I, like I said, I have no criminal record.
You know, like I have stable employment.
I, you know, they really don't have much against me other than, you know, the charges and the evidence.
And that, you know, in a DC courthouse, you know, post-J6, that was almost enough to keep me.
But luckily, I had, I guess I had just enough going for me that the judge was like, yeah, I can't, you know, unfortunately, I can't, you know, I can't detain you.
I'm going to have to let you go on home confinement.
But she put me under very strict conditions.
I had to wear an ankle monitor.
You know, I had to do the whole parole officer thing where, you know, you got to call the PO and he's making unannounced visits to your house.
You know, you can't leave the house except for officials, you know, court, doctor, stuff like that.
No phone or internet access.
That was a big one.
So that I was really good.
Yes.
So I was cut off.
You know, I was cut off.
And the reason that they took away my phone and internet was because a different J6er, while under house arrest, actually started buying like firearms and stuff on the internet.
So he kind of like, he kind of screwed a bunch of things.
Smart movie.
Yeah.
So they were like, so, you know, I'm, I'm a gun owner and they did, you know, they took my guns that morning.
And they were like, you know, he, you know, he, he might start buying guns and he might start buying like gun parts and assembling guns.
And, you know, there's no way we can, you know, make sure it's safe.
And so that was why they put me under such harsh conditions.
Yeah.
Well, hey, at least you got at the time that was, you know, worth celebrating, you know, getting to go back home with your wife, even if you couldn't leave the front door.
Yeah, definitely a huge relief to be able to come home.
And yeah.
I skipped over it before.
What did they take from your house?
Did they like rip everything apart and leave it a shambles or was it a disaster scene?
So I didn't, I didn't get to see it.
They were in, they were in our home for hours.
This is, you know, I learned all this from my wife because she was, you know, here.
Yeah, they were, they were going through the house for hours and they basically just every single room, they're just turning everything up, just going through everything, just leaving a huge mess.
They took a lot of stuff.
They didn't take that Bible, I hope.
No, I don't think they took it.
They're too stupid to figure out the image.
Yeah.
But yeah, they took, you know, my devices, you know, firearms, just, you know, anything, anything and everything that they could, you know, they felt they could use.
And the jacket that you were wearing that day.
You're the one thing I'll bust your chops on.
I really like the jacket, coach.
Come on.
The jacket.
You dumb son of a bitch.
You should have burned that in the backyard the day after.
And you know what?
Yeah, go ahead.
But they would have gotten you anyway.
The jacket is bloodstained from my own blood from that day, you know, from January 6th.
Did you get it back?
I got it back.
Yeah.
Okay.
In hindsight, it's worth it.
Yeah.
You could probably hawk that thing on eBay.
No, don't keep it.
Keep it.
Yeah, I'm going to keep it.
Well, especially because the actual judge that oversaw the majority of my case referred to it as a tactical jacket.
Yeah.
It's just a salt jacket.
Yeah, very good, Sam.
Yeah.
It had illegal attachments to it.
Yeah.
You got blue fauna.
Yeah.
That's exactly what I, yeah.
Bluke fauna.
I picked up the ball part of it.
My blue jacket.
That's right.
Your own blood, but good enough.
And if that, all that stuff isn't incredible enough for you, dear listener, Jeff also pulled another literal rabbit out, not a literal rabbit out of his hat, but you guys conceived with an unknown sentence duration hanging over your head, as I understand it.
We did.
Yeah.
Incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we knew, you know, we'd obviously been in a relationship for a number of years and we both knew we wanted to have kids.
And we're both kind of in our early 30s around there.
So I'm doing the math.
I know I'm looking at possibly five to 10 years and we just had to be realistic and realize that if we want to start a family, we might only have a few months to try to make one and we might not get any other chances.
Unbelievable.
So, your wife literally willfully, knowingly took on single motherhood.
There better not be a single damn skunk in the audience who would give her any guff for that.
What a gut.
I mean, how many women would say, yes, let's do it right now, even though I might be a single mother for five to ten?
Incredible.
Yeah, yeah, she deserves so much credit.
Definitely a very, very hard thing to do, you know?
So she deserves a lot of credit.
And that, but you know, when I found out that she was pregnant, that that made the process a little bit less painful because it was like something good is still going to come out of this crime, you know, like even if, you know, even if I do spend, you know, half a decade in prison, like, hey, you know, I got a baby on the way, you know, at least there's something, you know, hopefully to look forward to at the end of the road, you know.
You stupid jerk shouldn't have needed January 6th to get the ball rolling on family formation.
But hey, there's not a federal indictment to get the whatever works.
Yeah.
You're on house arrest and, you know, like Rolo, you could bleep.
There's nothing to do but can fight anyway.
Yeah, pretty much.
In our correspondence, the only thing that made my eyes glaze over was prisoners or house arrest people always do this.
They write about their like physical.
I'm like, don't care about your numbers, Jeff.
You know, like you bet, you know, whatever.
But I do have that.
I still have that picture.
Yes.
A picture of you with the giant barbell over your head.
Yeah.
I can't see the writing.
I forget at the moment, but it's still on the fridge, buddy.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Well, yeah, the workouts definitely got me through a lot of this too.
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Another perk of being on house arrest, I have a little decent home gym set up.
So I spent a lot of time down there during that process.
You know, thank you for being so generous with your time.
I got to keep asking these questions because they're springing up in addition to my pre-prepared ones.
What was house arrest like?
I mean, were you staring at each other and sort of like, you know, cooped up in a forever winter cabin?
Yeah.
It was, I would say it was not bad at first, but as the months dragged on and the stress of being under the weight of the indictment just, you know, keeps just not going, you know, it's just always there over your head, you know, the sort of Damocles or whatever.
It definitely became a drag after a while.
I'm lucky enough that, like I said, I kind of live out in the country.
So at least I have kind of a peaceful, you know, setting.
You know, I have a backyard I can go out in, but there's people that are on house arrest and they're in like a tiny little apartment.
Yeah.
I mean, that would be, that would be just maddening.
So yeah, I'm definitely grateful for having that time.
And you were allowed to go outside to your garden.
You didn't have to stay indoors, right?
Yeah, I could go outside and stay on my property.
Okay, that's a little bit better.
You can't walk the dog.
Yeah.
I can't leave the driveway.
I was nervous about it.
Electric shock therapy through your leg.
Every time I went to the end of the driveway to get the mail or the trash can, I was worried that I was going to set off the GPS tracker.
And sometimes it would happen.
The thing would malfunction and they would like call me in the middle of the night.
Well, they would call my wife because I didn't have a phone.
They'd be like, yeah, we can't pick up his tracker.
Is he home?
And we'd be like, yeah, I'm right here.
Yeah.
Living up on the mountain, their trackers don't work as well, I guess.
Oh, man.
And did you have any sense of surveillance on the house or suspicious cars rolling by or mostly?
Not that I wouldn't say so.
No, it's at that point, you're in the hands of the U.S. parole office or probations office.
And they're the ones that keep tabs on you.
And I didn't have any bad experiences with my PO.
He was an all right guy.
Cool.
You took the plea deal that was offered.
Anything interesting?
I mean, nobody would possibly, you know, you got arrested later on.
So you had some prior knowledge of guys who went before you.
So there was no way that you were facing a jury trial in DC.
Right.
And anything interesting from the plea bargain negotiations?
Or was it just like, look, buddy, this is the best you're going to get.
Take it or leave it?
Yeah.
I mean, I would just say, like, in hindsight, I do kind of regret taking their plea deal just because it was a terrible deal.
I mean, but that's how it is for every J6er.
I mean, any kind of normal, any kind of normal case, they would offer you some kind of some kind of relief for taking a plea deal.
You know, they wouldn't go after you as hard as they can.
But for us, like the plea deals were bad because like the setting that all the all the cases were in were so hostile towards the J6 defendants that they knew that the prosecutors knew they didn't really have to offer anything because they knew that like the judges don't like J6 defendants.
Any possible jury is going to be totally anti-JC.
Predetermined.
Yep.
Yeah.
So I do, I mean, I kind of regret it, but I think I made the smartest decision that I could at the time.
Just, you know, with what information I had, I think I, you know, I made the best decision that I could.
So, yeah.
That's totally get it.
The birth of the baby, were you in federal, did you get transferred to federal corrections by the time the baby came around or were you still in DC?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I was a little about that.
Yeah.
I was in Club Fed at the time, as I like to call it.
Yeah, I was I was pretty well settled in at that point at the prison that I was at.
And yeah, I actually got to hear my baby being born over the phone.
It was kind of miraculous because, you know, you could, you only get 15 minute phone calls and you only get so many.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I, I, I had talked to her the night before and she was like, I think it's coming, babe.
She was like, she was like, I'm in so much, I could hear the contraction starting because she, she wasn't able to talk.
You know, she, she was like breathing heavily.
She was like, yeah, I'm going to call my friends and tell them to get ready.
And, you know, it's probably going to happen like tomorrow or tonight or something.
So I'm like, oh, man.
And then the phones shut off at 11 p.m.
So I can't make any calls until like hold it in, babe, until sunrise.
Exactly.
Yeah.
How did you time?
How did you time it?
Did she have to like call you when it was happening?
Yeah.
So I woke up early and called back and she was like, yeah, I'm at the hospital.
Everything's fine.
You know, just keep checking in basically.
I'm like, all right, you know, so I just kind of go about my, I kind of just go about my day in prison.
And I, I'm like telling my friends, like, yeah, he's coming today.
And, you know, I, I, uh, I actually took a nap.
Classic.
You got the couch, the maternity board couch.
Yeah.
You take a lot of naps in jail too.
So it was, uh, it was not out of the ordinary for me.
But yeah, I took a nap and I woke up a little later than I meant to.
So I woke up.
I was like, oh, crap.
Like, so I rushed and I get on the phone and she's like, she's like, yeah, he's coming.
Like, he's coming like right now.
And like, I can hear like the doctor talking through and everything.
And yeah, and he came out.
Oh, man, it was just, it was just incredible.
Like, I could hear his first cries and everything.
And it definitely brought a tear to my eye.
So.
And she didn't curse you like, you son of a bitch.
I didn't think I'd have to be talking to my husband in prison while giving birth to his baby.
I'm sorry.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah, she was a total soldier through it through all of it.
Yeah.
Shield maiden.
Yeah, she deserves an award for sure.
You know, yeah, I'm sure part of her wanted to, you know, she wanted to do a good job of keeping her chin up so that I wasn't worried, you know, with everything I was going through.
You know, yeah.
Well, that's one of the things about this.
Any kind of trial you're going through, you might look at it and say, oh, how did, how do people get through that?
How did they do it?
But you have to believe in your ability to rise to the occasion, you know, and that is a real thing.
Yeah.
And I mean, when they're going to get stuff, the tough gets going, I guess.
I just, I, I, I leaned on uh the limited reading I've done about, you know, stoic philosophy.
You know, I just, yeah, I was just kind of like, well, whatever happens, happens.
Like, just hope for the best.
Uh, you called it club fed.
Uh, one of my favorite images of the past five years is the picture of you and your buddies outside upon new liberation.
But a little bit about the, you know, without going into the details, sounds like federal prison where you were was not that bad.
Yeah, it really wasn't.
Um, but it's a mixed bag.
It, you know, it kind of depends on who you are and where you are.
Um, your time in prison can definitely be hell.
I mean, it can be hell every day if you know if it if your circumstances make it that or if your behavior makes it that.
Uh, but if you're a decent guy and you know how to, you know, you know how to control your emotions and you know how to just kind of get through things and it can be all right.
And I got to say, it really wasn't in the summertime, I was having a good time.
I mean, I was, I was there with, I had several other J6 guys and we were just, we were working out, we were hitting the weights, uh, just going outside every day.
They had ice baths.
We were like, we were doing ice baths and then just suntanning.
Yeah, it was, it was great.
We were just laying out, just you know, work out and then getting the ice and then lay out in the sun for a while.
It was, it was actually, it was actually kind of sweet.
And then, and then like after dinner, we'd go outside and like toss the frisbee around or toss the football.
It was kind of like, it was like college campus.
Yeah, man.
It was, it was wild.
It was just not bad for most of it, you know, but for racial demographics of where you were.
Yeah, probably like half white and then, I don't know, maybe like 40% black and then 10% Latino.
Yeah, well, that makes a big difference right there.
I've known a couple of guys who have done some stints in the joint.
And one friend of mine, he was saying that he was in some of the worst prisons around this area, Chicagoland area.
And but then he got transferred downstate to a majority white prison.
He said the atmosphere was like the college campus.
There was a library people were using all the time.
People were taking all kinds of classes.
But when you're in a majority Negro prison, it's everything's locked down.
It's, you know, there's no extra privileges.
There's none of those.
There's no classes or, you know, not like a college type environment.
So, so really, I mean, and what he said was that white prisoners were like any of us could have a bad day, you know, and that's how that's how most white prisoners are.
They're basically normal people that got into a bad circumstance, but otherwise, you know, they're white people.
And if you're in a prison full of white people, it's not going to be that bad.
And there can be things we can use words like rehabilitation or, you know, training people in some skills that they get some job when they come out.
But being in a majority of Negroes, forget it.
You know, you're lucky to escape with your life.
Yeah.
Yeah, it would, it would definitely be rough.
And I actually spent a little over a month in a federal detention facility before I got to like my permanent spot.
And in that place, I was locked up with like 80-something guys, and there was like less than 10 white guys.
And that place was rough and it was dirty.
And it was just a madhouse.
And it was kind of scary at times.
But luckily, I stayed out of trouble.
Yes.
No assaults, no, no fights, no bathroom scenes.
Not with me.
Not with me, but some of my friends actually, one of my friends got attacked, but he kind of sort of brought it upon himself by just not kind of handling himself the way he should have.
Enough sense.
Yeah.
But yeah, who you're hoped up with definitely makes a big difference.
And then we're getting toward November 2024.
Our possibly worst audio show ever was just before the election.
It was a bunch of us sitting around a table by a campfire, and almost everybody around the table said what we've discussed before: look, if you know, put your pride aside.
If Trump wins, there's a possibility that those guys get out.
Obviously, the alternative option, no chance in hell.
So just do it and swallow your pride and stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Go ahead, Sam.
Well, let me tell you this.
You will remember we had a number of discussions and shows previous to that, even talking about the election and Trump.
And I, like many people, were very disgusted, but it was actually a letter from Jeff that said, I hope you're voting right.
And that really convicted me.
And I said, you know what?
If there's one thing he does, which is release these guys, get these guys pardoned, then that's not too much to ask me to go vote for this man.
A concrete.
And I appreciate your vote, my friend.
And just so you know, I encourage every, I said, if I were, if I lived in a swing state, I would vote for Trump.
I live in a deep red state.
So sorry, Jeff, I did not vote for your release.
I wrote in.
But, you know, water under the bridge didn't make a damn bit of difference.
Yeah, it's all good now.
Did you, did you think it was going to happen?
Did you, were you like moderating expectations?
What was your psychology heading into the election and then the inauguration?
Yeah, I was I was trying to do the stoic thing and just be like, whatever happens, happens, you know, like it, I was trying to, I was actually trying to convince myself that I didn't want to get out so that I wouldn't be, you know, heartbroken if he lost or if he didn't pardon us.
Yeah.
And yeah, like leading up to the election, it was, I mean, it was craziness.
Didn't know what was going to happen.
Some days we'd be like, oh, Trump's going to win.
Other days we'd be like, oh, no, Kamala.
I will say, I did not think that I would be home right now.
I really never thought that I would be home, you know, this early.
Fair enough.
Where were you when you got the news and what happened?
Well, I know you were in prison, but yeah.
Yeah.
So the day of my unit in the prison got locked down the week of the election because supposedly they found a knife in one of the television rooms.
So we couldn't watch the election on TV.
So I had to listen to it on a little, you have little portable radios and they had a television in the gym that was always tuned to Fox News.
And I could pick the signal up from that television in certain parts of my dormitory.
So that's how I listened to the election.
And so what I did was I got some scratch paper and I drew out the United States and I took an almanac and I filled in how many electoral votes each state has.
And so I'm just, I was listening, I would have to kind of diligently listen to the TV.
And like when they would call certain states, I would like fill in on my chart.
I'd be like, oh, oh, sweet.
Like, oh, we got Ohio.
That's like nine votes.
Okay.
So that should be like Trump should be at like this number and Harris is still down here.
Like it's looking good.
And yeah.
So the highest stakes electoral count.
You're like the Count of Monte Cristo Politico edition.
Yeah.
I was just, I mean, I was up all night pacing that hallway listening to it.
But it was such a landslide that really by 11 p.m., it was pretty much a sure, it was a sure shot.
You know, I called my dad and woke him up.
I wanted to see if he was watching the race and he was just sleeping and he was like, oh, I don't know.
I don't know.
And I was like, dude, it's really good.
Like, he just got like North Carolina or whatever.
So yeah.
And then it was a total thrill ride.
And how about when you got the pardon news when that hit the waves?
I watched him sign the pardon on TV.
I watched my freedom get restored live on television.
Oh, strangers.
Yeah, I was watching the inaugural events.
I was pretty much glued to the TV that day.
You know, I slipped out for the meals.
Actually, my last meal at prison, I didn't even, I just went down there real quick and threw my food into a little Ziploc bag and snuck it back up to the, because I wanted to get back because he was at the Capitol One arena.
And I was like, I was like, if he signs the pardons, he's going to do it at the Capitol One Arena.
I think that was my expectation.
So I wanted to get back there real quick.
So that was my last one.
You'd be ready for a food fight, you know, just to celebrate.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah.
So, yeah, it was, it was 8 p.m. and he was back at the White House.
And when he said 1,500 pardons, I knew I was good because I knew that that meant everybody.
Yeah.
And so as soon as he said that, I got up and I called my wife and I told her I'm coming home.
And she was like, oh my gosh, that's, you know, that's amazing.
You know, so that was the moment when I, yeah, I was like, this is, that's, that's the whole, that's the full Monty right there.
He did the whole thing.
And up till that point that we were all, you know, is he going to do them all?
Is he going to do some?
Is he going to commute?
And then it basically went nuclear, except for the, you know, 13 or 12 names that I guess were particularly rampunctious that day and they just got commuted instead of pardoned.
And people were like, oh, there's only 12 or 13 names.
He didn't do a full pardon.
You know, guys instantly going for the negative interpretation, which has driven me insane these first five months.
And lo and behold, yeah, Yahoo.
And then we had the picture of you guys out in the snow shortly shortly thereafter.
Yes.
So, you know, we, us Jay Sixers are like speculating.
By this point, we were pretty much restricted to the dormitories just with the time of day it was.
Yeah.
So there was only one other J Sixer on my unit.
And so me and him are just kind of talking like, oh, when do you think we're going to get out?
Like, we kind of knew that it was going to be, it was going to probably be days because we had heard that generally they have like 72 hours to release you and they usually want to do it quickly.
So we kind of were speculating, but I thought it was going to be the next day because all the office staff had already gone home for the night.
Well, after about an hour or so, people start kind of talking and we start seeing, you know, certain guards kind of moving around in ways that aren't normal.
We start seeing some cars pull up in the parking lot, and people are like, Something's happening.
I just, yeah, I just heard from my boy downstairs that like so-and-so came into the office and she never works, you know, this late.
And they're coming in for y'all.
They're coming in for y'all.
And I don't know, maybe.
I was like, maybe they're just going to like do the paperwork.
Jailhouse gossip.
Yeah.
And at one point, a guard came in to do like a count, and my roommates asked him, they were like, Yo, is he going home?
Is he about to go home?
And the guard was like, Look, honestly, this has never happened before.
I have no idea what's going to happen, honestly.
But yeah, at about 11 p.m., the guard for our unit came and found me and the other J6er, and he was like, All right, guys, pack your bags, meet me in the stairwell in five minutes.
You know, get it, get everything together as quickly as possible.
Yeah, who?
We need you out of here.
Yeah.
So they, so, so, yeah.
So we go down to the same place that we had been processed in, you know, when we first got to the prison and they checked us out and they're, they're just asking us if we have rides.
And they asked me if I have a ride.
And I'm like, no, it's 1 a.m. on January, what, 20, 20th, 21st?
It's like negative three degrees out here.
There's ice all over the place.
Like, no, I didn't tell anybody to come up.
I didn't know I was going to go home.
Let me stay here for another night, please.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So they were like, okay, I'm going to ask you again in 10 minutes.
And I recommend that you tell me that you have a ride home.
And I was like, yep, sure.
Got it.
Yep.
So yeah, yeah.
So they gave us some civilian clothes and just walked us out the front door.
And that was that.
There were people already there.
There were some family members already there and a couple supporters already there.
And they just instantly start, you know, whip out the phones and start taking photos.
And I'm just like, I'm just like, what's going on?
I'm like, are you guys really supporters?
Are you like Antifa or something or journalists?
I mean, my head is just spinning.
Like, I just can't believe it's really happening.
You know, so yeah, they let us out.
The circle, the full circle completion from hell to back to freedom.
So I gotta share, I gotta share one little detail.
So please, you know, we're we kind of uh we're like finding hotel rooms.
So, so I hop in, uh, I hop in the car with another J6er and we, you know, we go to one hotel and they're all booked up.
So we're like, okay, this hotel's got room.
So we're, we're driving through like western rural Pennsylvania at like 1:30 a.m. and a Beach Boys song comes on the radio, Kokomo.
You know that song?
Of course.
Yeah.
And it like, it, it was such a, it didn't fit the physical atmosphere at all, you know, because it's like, it's, it's negative three degrees outside.
It's pitch black.
And, and, and, but it fit with what I was feeling at the time, you know, just the just the sheer like bliss of like everything worked out, you know, like, I'm, I'm, I'm going, I'm going home, baby.
Like, it's, yeah, I thought that was just a, that was just a fun moment for me.
Thank you for sharing that, big guy.
Yeah, this is the first show that I've been fully on camera for us for our purposes because I got the new fiber optic internet, which is hopefully I haven't glitched out at all.
But I've been, you know, smiling for the majority of this interview, probably more than any previous one, because it really is, you know, just incredible, remarkable, heart-rending.
The great ending, like out of a movie that you got to live.
Is the pardon certificate framed and over your mental yet?
You know, I had it printed and then I think I lost it.
Oh, my goodness.
Keep a little folded up copy in your wallet.
Dog.
Yeah.
Actually, actually, coach, I think you have something to do with that.
Tell you about it off the oh, yeah.
I think I know you're talking about the son of a bitch.
Yeah, no, I didn't steal your certificate, but yeah, I think this one's on you.
Well, maybe they'll send you a second.
Well, well, so we actually had to uh, they said they came in the email, so we had to get them printed out ourselves.
So, oh, okay, I guess, yeah, I guess Elon was already in Trump's cost cutting being what it is.
Yeah, yeah, all right, I'll just print out another one that is over to the mental bucklehead.
All right, um, you've been super generous with your time, you've been awesome, especially for a first timer on a podcast.
So far as we know, we are extraordinarily grateful.
I just have a question, yeah.
I just, my last one is well, and I get maybe this is a pivot toward the next show when we talk about the political zeitgeist and our guys and the cause and the movement and what's going on in America and around the world.
But do you resent Trump?
Do you view him as a hero?
Something in between?
Where's your head at on politics and Trump right now after all you've been through?
Yeah, I mean, after all this, he's going to go down for me as a badass.
I mean, he did, he did what I needed to do.
He came through in the end for me.
Yeah.
I mean, I remember the day that he got shot in Pennsylvania.
Once again, I was napping and I was awoken from my nap by some guy in my unit, like, yo, they shot Trump.
And I'm just, I just like shot out of bed.
I'm like, what?
And everybody's like around the TV.
And I'm like, and it had just gone down.
So they had just like the Secret Service had just tackled him.
So you just see like the podium and you don't see him.
And I'm like, oh no, like my chances of getting out have just been erased by a bullet, you know.
But then obviously that didn't happen.
And it was, I mean, it was literally breathtaking, you know, watching that happen and with obviously what it meant for me.
So yeah, Trump is going to go down in my books as he came through for me.
And that's, that's, that's what better late than never.
You know, yeah.
I mean, I don't, obviously, I don't love everything about the guy.
And, you know, he's not perfect.
And, but I mean, who is?
You know, we have a crazy political situation these days.
And so it just is what it is.
You know, you're back, you're back home with your wife and kid with an incredible story to tell and a record wiped clean and enough more memories probably than most people accumulate in a lifetime.
Point.
I have a question.
So I don't know if this is maybe getting into a little bit of the conservatard element, but I've heard the stories about like people who have been pardoned are some of them have been killed already by police or, you know, set up in different ways.
What are your thoughts on that?
Do you have any fears about that somehow the system is going to get even with you, even though you got pardoned?
Well, I mean, I do know about one guy who unfortunately died that seemed like he was kind of going through some kind of mental crisis.
I don't know much about that, but I'm not too worried.
I will say that, you know, when the next administration comes in, I might be a little more concerned, but I think I'm fine.
You know, I met with the FBI recently and got the last of my possessions back, which I was a little bit worried about.
Jeff, yeah, it sounded like you became an informant there for a second.
I know.
Sorry.
I definitely phrased that.
I phrased that poorly.
Yeah, yeah.
We met up for coffee.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I met them in a parking lot to get my tools back, which I thought that they were playing games with me because it took a while to get them back, but it was just bureaucracy.
No, I don't think I have a huge target on my back, but I will say that I'm definitely like keeping my, you know, keeping my nose clean, so to speak.
I, you know, definitely kind of feel lucky for, yeah, I definitely feel lucky for having survived this.
And, you know, after having gone through everything, you know, a big part of me is like, yeah, you know, been there, done that.
I don't need to go to the rallies anymore.
I don't need to, you know, necessarily mingle with, you know, groups or whatever.
So, yeah, I think I'll be fine.
But you never know.
I mean, we could have a bad administration come into place in the future, but I don't think that they would ever be successful in reprosecuting J Sixers.
I don't think that they'd be able to do that.
Right.
No, I don't think that either.
Agreed.
It's funny, Jeff.
I also have personal belongings in a box somewhere in the bureaucracy.
It's not the correctional bureaucracy, but they tried to send it.
They tried to send it back to me.
And I was like, no, no, no, you hold on to him.
I'll be back for them in due time.
We'll see.
Can I have my hot water pitcher back, please?
We'll see.
Awesome.
Yeah, I'll stop there.
Rolo, anything else in your stack?
He's good.
And I don't know, Jeff, any last thoughts or last words for the audience?
Doesn't have to be motivational, profound, or inspirational, but sum it up for us.
You've been great, absolutely great this entire time.
Thank you.
Oh, thank you guys.
Yeah, I don't really have much to say.
I mean, I guess I would say, you know, if you're going through something like, you know, really bad, like, you know, you're in really bad, big trouble, just try to keep a level head and just try to, you know, try to stick it out because you don't, you never really know what's going to happen.
I mean, things can, your luck can turn around quite quickly.
That, that's for sure.
So, amen.
Yep.
Ask for your lawyer.
Ask for your lawyer if it's that kind of trouble and realize that, yeah, it's, it's not always hopeless, even in the worst possible situations.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Well, I already got you a bottle, big guy.
So you can buy me a beer or I'll buy you a beer.
Fine.
I don't want to come across as stingy over the year, but look forward to catching up soon.
Congratulations again.
God bless you, your wife, and your new son.
And yeah, we'll be we'll be in touch and enjoy your life 2.0, I guess.
Yeah, I certainly am.
I certainly am.
All right, dear audience.
It was fun.
You bet.
Our pleasure.
You got the closing music.
We love you, fam.
I don't know if we'll talk to you next week, but we will do another one for sure, probably just with Sam, Rollo, and me to kick around everything that's been going on.
I'll try to shake the cobwebs out and get over my content creation funk, which is all I was just in a snit at having to produce content, post things.
It gets really tiring.
It's been over almost 10 years now.
And I was, yeah, we'll talk about it next show.
Regardless, thank you, Sam.
Thank you, Rolo.
I think this was an excellent interview, if I can prejudge it.
And Jeff, what song did you choose to take us out this week?
Wow, that would have been a great choice given my story, but I had my heart set on.
It's called We the People by a band called New Glory.
Oh, yeah.
Classic RAC in Philadelphia.
Oh, hell yeah.
I have that record.
That's a great record.
I haven't heard Sam that excited since his wife walked by in a negligent song.
It's got a great tune and also has good lyrics, too.
Very dramatic.
Yeah, a great band and a great song.
All right.
Thank you, Jeff.
God bless.
We love you, fam, and we'll talk to you shortly.
See ya.
Go ahead, Samroll, or whatever.
Damn it!
Listen to shouts for liberty, let it go through these streets.
And listen to time, let's paint, please, for common sense.
The media spins the same as absolute nonsense.
For every kid in every city, everyone you meet.
That's where his words bring true in every heart that beat.
Give me liberty, I'll give that.
Give me liberty, I'll give me death.
Give me liberty, I'll give me death.
Give me liberty, give me liberty.
The USA sacred toes behind your destined doors.
It's the independence we subway every July the 4th.
The spirit is growing when our kids are meet today.
Good job!
Passing Henry's words bring true in every heart that beats.
Give me liberty, I'll give that.
Give me liberty, I'll give me death.
Give me liberty, I'll give me death.
Give me liberty.
I refuse to walk unaware as so many do today of the sacrifices that were made to give me a better way.
Our forefathers in their flesh and blood on the battlefield.