J6 political prisoners thanked their families and the American people for continued support as they continue to endure political persecution and incarceration during the Truth and Light Freedom Festival.
Approximately one hundred J6 advocates and family members attended the Missouri event, organized by defendants detained in the DC gulag and American Patriot Relief, a non-profit “born out of necessity” to support the political prisoners and their families amid the unjust persecution,
The Gateway Pundit was slated to live stream from the festival, but it was held in a rural location with no internet reception.
Former leaders of the Proud Boys including Enrique Tarrio, who was not in Washington DC during the Capitol Riot, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, and Zachary Rehl, who committed no violent acts on Jan. 6 were featured during the event via prerecorded calls from the DC Central Detention Facility where they are currently detained. Tarro, Biggs, Nordean and Rehl face up to 20 years in prison after being found guilty by a jury of admitted left-wing activists and will be sentenced in late August.
Biggs, a two-time purple heart recipient, cautioned Americans about taking freedom for granted:
We appreciate all the love and support you guys have had for us out there and we are grateful for it. It’s hard for a lot of us to make that transition from our own personal independence into being thrown into solitary confinement and gulags and things like that. So, just remember when you’re out there celebrate your independence and celebrate that time to be with your friends and family. Remember, just enjoy it and cherish it and don’t take it for granted because I look back at so much time that I’ve wasted in life. When you sit here in jail you think a lot. Don’t waste that time. Look to the person to the left of you right now and say, ‘I love you.’ Look to the right and say the same thing. Give everybody a hug and don’t take those things for granted because you never know when you might get snatched up and thrown in jail for with a possible 20 year sentence for walking into a building and using the bathroom.
…
I wish I could go back and look at my daughter and give her a hug those last few days and really cherish that time.
Barry Ramey, a 39-year-old aircraft mechanic from Florida who has been incarcerated for 15 months, called on Americans to “stand up to the corporations — that are taking down our democracy, our Republic, and our Consitution — with our wallets:”
America is one of the greatest countries that ever lived, if not the very greatest. We are definitely under a culure war. There is marxist attack on our culure, our way of life, our way of being. This is something that we all, We The People, need to address. I’d like to bring your attention to what is happening with Anheuser Busch, aka Transheuser Busch, Bud Light, the queen of beers, and Target. The American people have spoken. We have literally said to these woke corporations our feelings about what is happening in this country. Budlight and Target are losing billions of dollars because of their decisions that go against our American values.
At the moment that we thought there was no hope, that we were going to be overan by this culture war, the American people stepped up and they spoke. The result in the message was very loud: We will not accept this. I am encouraging every single American out there to continue with these boycotts. Continue speaking with your wallet. Say, ‘No,’ in rejecting this woke ideology that is overtaking — attempting to overtake our country. It is a lifestyle change to buy American, to be proud of America, to stand up for what we believe in with our wallets. I’m encouraging all of you to continue with this trend and make it permanent, that we vote with our wallets.
J6 political prisoner Jonathan Mellis wrote a letter to former President Donald Trump on behalf of all the defendants in the ‘Patriod Pod,’ asking him to address attendees of the Truth and Light Freedom festival, but Trump did not respond to the request.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years, the longest sentence handed to any J6 defendant to date, despite never having stepped into the Capitol building and never committing acts of violence during the Capitol riot.
Rhodes explained how Judge Amit Mehta added terror enhancement to his sentence for wrong think:
This is being recorded from my solitary confinement cell in the Washington, DC jail. I just want to let you know that, as I stated at my sentencing, I was recently sentenced to 18 years in prison. As I stated to the judge there, I am a political prisoner and, just like President Trump, our only crime is opposing those who are destroying our nation. I served my country honorably as an airbourne Wisonsin scout until I was disabled in a rupturing incurring shooting accident.
I joined the armey at the age of 18 and swore on oath to support the Consitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I was willing to give my life to my nation and I still am today and that is why I am sitting here in solitary confinment — because I used my voice to speak out against the corrupt cabal that is destroying our nation.
On January 6, I did not enter the Capitol nor did I instruct anyone else to. I simply stood outside and used my first Amendment protected political speech to condemn a fraudulent, stolen and illegal and unconstituonal election. You should know that I’m a Yale Law School graduate. I graduated from Yale Law School in 2004. I also clerked for the Arizona Supreme Court after law school and I was a Yale research scholar, researching constitutional law. I also worked in Washington, DC on the DC staff of Texas congressman Ron Paul. I am a lifetime constitutionalist and a lifetime advocate for the preservation of our consitutional republican. And that’s why I am targeted by the deep state. As a Yale Law school graduate I certainly could have become legal or political elite. I could have become a law proffessor I could have gone into politics if I had simply had towed the line and sat down and carried their talking points. Instead I honored my oath to defend the constitution by speaking out against their agenda. And that I was why I believe I was handled so hard at my sentencing.
The judge made it very clear that it’s my speech that he finds most offensive. He highlighted my political and my lifetime achievments. My military service and my time at Yale Law School — they said, ‘You are dangerous because are a smart, charismatic and compelling figure. That’s what makes you dangerous,’ is what he told me. Then he quoted a recent interview I did talking about the election and how it violated state law in all the critical swing states. Now that, violated Article 2 of the US constitution which states plainly that state legislators alone have the power to determine the manner in which electors are selected. He quoted me talking about that, even while I was in jail. And he said, ‘nothing has changed,’ I’m ‘unrepentant.’ in my First Amenmdment protected free speech ‘opposition’ to what is being done.
And he said, ‘We simply can’t have that in this country,’ meaning my free speech. And he sentenced me to 18-years in prison.
I want you to know that on January 6, we were there to provide security for two committed events on Capitol grounds. One of them was the Latinos for Trump rally, one block north of the Capitol. I spoke at that rally at 11 oclock in the morning and we also provided security for it. The second one was Ali Alexander’s event, right there on Capitol grounds known as Area 8. That was going to be the place where members of Congress were going to speak, including Marjorie Taylor Greene.
That is why we were on Capitol grounds. That is why the Oath Keepers were escorting people from the Elipse, from President Trump’s event on the Elipse. I escorted speakers and VIP guests to the Capitol grounds. Members of the Oath Keepers who did go inside the Capitol that day did so at their own volition. They did so with the best of intentions and inside all they did was walk around and take selfies or did their best to help police officers. None of them hit a police officer, pepper sprayed anybody, kicked anybody or anyting else. And yet, they were all, like myself, railroaded through a show trial.
The reason why were railroaded through a show trial is because of who we were.
Our organization of 40,000 members across the country, all through the Trump administration, protected people in the streets against Antifa. At twelve Trump rallies, we provided escorts outside the rallies. We escort people back to the vehicles. We did nine security operations in Washington, DC to protect Trump supporters against Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
The government charged J6 defendant Joseph Thomas with 12 felony offenses, which if convicted would result in a 30-year prison sentence. In June, Thomas was exonerated of all violent charges after footage exhibited during his trial confirmed the minister and war veteran only attempted to quell violence between police and demonstrators.
Unlike hundreds of J6ers, Thomas was released on bond following his arrest.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, state-run CNN cautioned ahead of the Truth and Light Freedom festival that Thomas and the families of the political prisoners were gathering to honor and commemorate the J6 “insurrection.”
Thomas explained in his address to J6 advocates that he spearheaded Sing For Freedom, a campaign calling on Americans to create videos of themselves singing the national anthem, to continue to stand in solidarity with the good men who remain detained, most of who committed misdemeanor offenses:
[Politica prisoners] singing of the national anthem has helped to change the face of this entire movement. Back in early July 2021, I started the Sing For Freedom campaign and that’s all because of the inspiration that the gentlemen inside the DC jail had shown one another. Richard Barnett one day decided to snub his nose at the establishment and sing the national anthem while walking down the hallway very loudly and that was motivating to all of them men inside. So they began to sing it with one another from behind their steel doors and it helped them to unify with one another as they sat in solitary confinment. They didn’t know one another. They didn’t know anything outside was happening. All they knew is that they were isolated, sent away, forgotten about. At that point, nobody was talking about them, nobody was reporting about them, nobody was fighting for them. They were losing hope. Richard Barnett took that opportunity to show some patriotic love and in unified them with love with one another.
Eventually, a recording of them singing togehter got out from the jail and it was told that it became a nightly routine. It started at several different times but eventually it solidified itself at 9pm eastern every single night.
In early July when I first heard the recording when I got out of the jail, it moved me because in May of 21 when I was arrested by an FBI SWAT team for my presence at the Capitol, I was awarded bond. Maybe I felt a little guilty, I don’t know. I had no idea why I was released and they were sitting behind bars but I had known that thier conditions were absolutely horrible. So, I prayed and I said, ‘God, I cannot thank you enough for the freedom that I’ve been given to still take care of my family, but what can I do? You’ve given me this gift for a reason.’
God spoke to my heart again and he said this is it. So, I said fine. I am going to go and I am going to sing with them every night. And I go out on my porch and I sing the national anthem loud and proud at 9pm. My neighbor came out and asked me one day and said what are you doing are you practicing for a ball game or something. And I said No and then I told her the story. The sheer look of horror that came over her face said it all. And I’m like great now my neighbor thinks I’m a terrorist. But she didn’t stop me.
I kept going out on my porch every single night to sing the anthem. A couple of days after I kept doing that, I heard with her young kids singing the anthem from her porch as well. That moved me almost to tears. To know that someone out here cares.
I started to request people send me videos of them singing the anthem. It was because of the patriotic love of the guys in the jail, even though it is this nation that is persecuting them. That has inspired a movement.
Thomas also collaborated with Black Lives Matter leader Ron J. Spike to create, ‘Chains Off Me,’ a rap song exposing the broken criminal justice system.
Investigative journalist and former war correspondent Lara Logan, Trennis Evans, a J6 defendant who founded Condemned USA to assist J6ers with legal fees, Gateway Pundit reporter Cara Castronouva and News Max host John Tabbaco were among J6 advocates who addressed families at the Truth and Light Freedom Festival.
This story originally appeared on TheGateWayPundit
