Multiple people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have sought permission to travel to Washington to attend President-elect Donald Trump‘s inauguration — and their requests have yielded mixed results.
On Friday, a federal judge denied a request from Russell Taylor — who gathered a group of “fighters” to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — to attend Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The defendant was invited to the inauguration by former Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, who wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth last month hailing Taylor’s “passion for what is right and good is reflected in his intentions to lift others.”
Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed judge, disagreed. “It would not be appropriate for the Court to grant permission to attend such a hallowed event to someone who carried weapons and threatened police officers in an attempt to thwart the last Inauguration, and who openly glorified ‘[i]nsurrection’ against the United States,” he wrote in his order.
The decision follows another rejection from U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, who on Thursday struck down a similar request from Christopher Belliveau. Belliveau is accused of using bear spray on Capitol Police officers and of breaking into the Capitol building. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
So far, only one Jan. 6 defendant has been granted permission to attend Trump’s inauguration. Eric Peterson, who pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol during the protest, was given the green light to travel to Washington by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who presided over Trump’s federal election interference case.
Requests from two other Jan. 6 defendants, William Pope and Cindy Young, are currently pending.
Trump has attempted to recast the violent attack on the Capitol as “a day of love,” and he has praised the rioters as “patriots” and “hostages.” During his 2024 presidential campaign, he repeatedly said that one of his first acts upon his return to the White House would be to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, a bold test of his executive powers that he will likely be able to exercise.
