On Jan. 6, 2021, Julian Khater used a can of bear spray to attack Capitol Police officers who were trying to hold the line against attackers. One of the officers Khater sprayed was Brian Sicknick, who died the next day after suffering a stroke.
Last year, Khater pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon, and earlier this year he was sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Presumably, he is one of the “Jan. 6 hostages” that Donald Trump says he will set free on his first day back in office, should he be elected in November, per a social media post that reads, “My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!”
The questions seem especially urgent because Trump’s promise to free the insurrectionists is not an afterthought or a throwaway line for him.
Curious minds (or at least the media) ought to ask whether Trump’s alleged get-out-of-jail card would also include Brian Christopher Mock, who bragged that he “beat the s— out of a police officer,” according to someone who spoke with the FBI. Mock, who was wielding a baton as a weapon, was sentenced to 33 months in prison and another two years of supervised release for a total of six felonies, including obstructing police officers during a civil disorder, and four counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.
Or Peter Stager, who was sentenced to 52 months in prison for assaulting a Capitol police officer with a flagpole. In a video taken on Jan. 6, Stager declared that “every single one of those Capitol law enforcement officers, death is the remedy, that is the only remedy they get.” Is he on Trump’s list?
What about Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy? Or Daniel “DJ” Rodriguez, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for driving a stun gun into the neck of police officer Michael Fanone during the most vicious clash outside the Capitol. After his sentencing, an unrepentant Rodriguez shouted “Trump won!” as he left the courtroom.
Will Trump pardon them too?
The questions seem especially urgent because Trump’s promise to free the insurrectionists is not an afterthought or a throwaway line for him. It has become the centerpiece of his bid for a second term.
When he launched his re-election campaign at a rally in Waco, Texas, Trump stood with hand on heart as a recording of the so-called “J6 Prison Choir” was played, singing what’s become its anthem, “Justice for All.”
“Our people love those people,” Trump declared at Waco. “If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly. … And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”
By dangling pardons for the rioters, historian and MSNBC analyst Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, “Trump’s not just trying to keep people loyal to him. He’s also letting elites and his base know that any future violence they plan or commit in the interests of returning him to power will be forgiven.”
The thing is, we have pictures and videos of what happened that day.
A comprehensive review of bodycam footage by the Justice Department found “approximately 1,000 events that may be characterized as assaults on federal officers” who were trying to defend the Capitol against the Trumpist mob. Since Jan. 6, 2021, the DOJ has obtained more than 718 guilty pleas, including 213 defendants who pleaded guilty to felonies including seditious conspiracy and assaulting federal officers. Another 171 defendants were also convicted.
It seems mind-boggling that Trump, the self-professed “law and order candidate,” is planning to wipe out the 6 1/2-year sentence of Ralph Joseph Celentano III, who grabbed an officer at the Capitol and threw him over a ledge, an act the judge described as a “truly cowardly and despicable thing to do.” Yet if we are to take him at his word, these are the people Trump is promising to return to civilian society. There’s also Ronald Colton McAbee, the off-duty sheriff’s deputy who grabbed the leg of a fallen police officer and dragged him toward the mob. McAbee was wearing reinforced knuckle gloves, and when another officer tried to help his downed colleague, McAbee swung at the officer’s head and body. Videos captured the scene, reported Axios: “He then lifted the first downed officer and they both slid down a set of steps, with McAbee falling on top of the officer, who was hospitalized.” McAbee was sentenced to 70 months in prison. According to the FBI, Vincent J. Gillespie grabbed a riot shield from police and can be seen in footage using the stolen shield to ram law enforcement officers while “screaming ‘traitor’ more than once and ‘treason,’ as he points to a law enforcement officer.” A federal judge sentenced him to 5 1/2 years in prison for assaulting, resisting or impeding officers; civil disorder; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. Peter Schwartz went to the Trump-inspired insurrection armed with a wooden tire knocker and assaulted police with a chair and chemical spray. After the attack on the Capitol, he boasted in a text message that he had thrown “the first chair at the cops,” bragging, “I started a riot.” Prosecutors noted that Schwartz had nearly 40 prior convictions for assaults and threats to officers. He’s now serving a 14 year sentence for assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers using a dangerous weapon, interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, and disorderly conduct and commission of an act of violence on Capitol grounds. Ryan Samsel’s “violent attacks on the police on Jan. 6, 2021, were widely seen as the tipping point in the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob,” according to reporting by The New York Times. Samsel was one of the first rioters to push through the barricades and overrun police resistance. He was convicted of federal assault charges last month and is awaiting sentencing in June. Peter Webster, an ex-New York cop, was “seen repeatedly pushing at the barricades and then swinging a flagpole at Officer Noah Rathbun before shoving through the police line and tackling the officer.” Webster is currently serving a 10-year sentence for charges including for assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. As we watch Republicans rush to back Trump as the presumptive party nominee, it feels like a good time to ask if the Republican Party, which claims to “back the blue,” thinks these individuals should be freed on Trump’s return to the White House. It’s a question that Trump, along with his supporters, enablers and rationalizers, ought to be asked every day between now and November.
Charlie Sykes is an MS NOW contributor and the author of the newsletter "To the Contrary." 
