Several people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have requested permission to travel to Washington to attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump — and their requests have met with mixed results.
On Friday, a federal judge denied a request by Russell Taylor — who had assembled a group of “warriors” to travel to Washington on January 6, 2021 — to attend Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth last month that reflected Taylor’s “passion for what is right and good in his intentions to uplift others.”
Lamberth, a judge appointed by Reagan, disagreed. “It would not be appropriate for the Court to grant permission to attend such a sacred event to someone who carried weapons and threatened police officers in an attempt to thwart the final inauguration, and openly ‘glorified’ it[i]“insurrection against the United States,” he wrote in his order.
The decision follows another rejection by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, who denied a similar request from Christopher Belliveau on Thursday. Belliveau is accused of using bear spray on Capitol Police officers and breaking into the Capitol building. He has denied being guilty of the charges.
So far, only one Jan. 6 defendant has been allowed 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 tried 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 returning to the White House would be to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants, a bold test of his executive powers that he will likely be able to exercise.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
