Washington In a letter presented by the defendant’s attorney, a former Republican House member and three current Utah members of Congress invited a Jan. 6 defendant to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
On January 6, 2021, defendant Russell Taylor gathered a group of fighters to come to Washington, D.C., in response to Trump’s tweet informing supporters that the day “will be wild.” Taylor collaborated with the government against members of the Three Percenters militia organization and entered a guilty plea to a count of obstruction of an official process in 2023.Prosecutors said that Taylor, “wearing an exposed knife on top of a bulletproof chest plate and carrying bear spray, a hatchet, and other weapons in his backpack,” led a mob that broke through a police line on his way to the Capitol.
On Wednesday, Dyke E. Huish, Taylor’s attorney, submitted a motion to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth requesting permission for Russell to accompany his wife and kids to D.C. for the inauguration.
A letter from former Utah Representative Chris Stewart was included in the petition, which Politico first reported. In it, Stewart stated that “three other current members of the Utah congressional delegation join with me in extending this invitation.”
According to Huish, who spoke with NBC News, Taylor knew Stewart’s relatives but didn’t really meet the former congressman until after he received a probationary term and six months of house detention.
“Mr. Taylor has some family friends who knew the congressman,” Huish stated. “The story is so dull. He wrote off a letter saying, “Hey, would you like to come to the inauguration?” and “I have to ask the judge permission, and here we are.” They are simply pals.
Huish stated that he was unsure of which three of the Utah delegation’s four members had accepted Stewart’s invitation to Taylor’s inauguration.
In Congress, Stewart vigorously supported Trump before resigning in 2023 due to his wife’s illness.
“He is admired by many, and especially those in his community,” Stewart wrote in his letter, adding that “Russ’s passion for what is right and good is reflected in his intentions to lift others.” Taylor is a “caring father and reveres his family, his faith, and his love of our Country as his highest priority in life.” It gives me great pleasure to invite him to be my guest at the Inauguration.
Requests for comment were not immediately answered by Stewart.
Taylor, according to Huish’s filing, “has successfully completed his home confinement and is in compliance with his terms and conditions of probation.”
“I personally want to be on the front steps and be one of the first ones to breach the doors!” Taylor wrote in a memorandum for his sentencing that he had organized a group of “Patriots that are ready to function as operators of disruption against Tyranny” prior to the attack. He also traveled with “hatchets, a taser, stun batons, bear spray, tactical gloves, a helmet, and a plate carrier vest with bullet proof plates.”
Following the attack on the Capitol, Taylor claimed in a message on January 6, 2021, that he “was pushing through traitors all day today.”
“THE CAPITOL WAS STORMED! “Today was a complete demonstration of freedom!” he added.
Just days after Lamberth stressed the judicial ideals of “truth and justice, law and order” during a separate sentencing on January 6, Taylor filed a request for permission to leave. Jurors who heard cases pertaining to January 6th, the judge added, “know how perilously close we came to letting the peaceful transfer of power, that great cornerstone of the American republican experiment and perhaps our foremost contribution to posterity, slip away from us.”
Taylor provided government testimony during trials that resulted in his co-conspirators being sentenced to prison. According to Huish, Lamberth had referred to his client as “the poster child” for how Jan. 6 defendants should approach their cases.
“He has never wavered in his conviction that the 2020 election contained irregularities. He has consistently backed President-elect Trump. ‘Look, I personally went too far,’ he added at the same time,” Huish remarked. “To be honest, I believe that if more individuals had been like Mr. Taylor, there would be a lot less people behind bars and this issue would have been settled much more quickly. Saying “I went too far” doesn’t mean sacrificing your morals.
On the campaign road, Trump repeatedly cited his earlier generous praise of the Jan. 6 rioters. He has called those receiving prison sentences for their involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, “patriots” and “hostages.”
In a Sunday Meet the Press interview, the president-elect stated that he would “most likely” pardon the rioters from January 6, stating that “those people have suffered long and hard.”
Trump claimed in the same interview that Congressmen who were on the Jan. 6 Committee “should go to jail.”
According to data provided this week by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., more than 1,570 persons have been charged with charges connected to the attack on January 6. According to the office, roughly 590 of those individuals were charged with assault, resisting law enforcement, or interfering with the officers’ ability to do their duties.In total, judges have sentenced more than 600 rioters to prison terms, while prosecutors have successfully convicted over 1,100 criminals.
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