Washington Gina Bisignano’s plan worked. In the hopes that Donald Trump would be re-elected and grant her a pardon, the Jan. 6 defendant had spent years doing everything in her power to postpone her criminal case related to her activities during the Capitol attack.
Trump’s pardons that wiped out the case against Bisignano gave her still another reason to celebrate on Monday, two days before her 56th birthday. The dismissal was signed Tuesday by a federal court. Bisignano was a free woman on Wednesday.
“I have no regrets,” Bisignano declared, adding that even if you gave me a million dollars, she wouldn’t change a thing.
NBC News interviewed a dozen offenders who were pardoned by Trump this week, and it was a recurring theme. They all expressed gratitude for Trump’s deliverance, but there were few indications of regret, unlike at many of the sentencing hearings that have taken place in the federal courthouse in Washington in recent years. Many people continue to believe that the 2020 election was rigged, a myth that Trump propagated as late as Monday while he was in the Capitol. A reckoning was eagerly hinted at by some of the pardoned, while others uttered words of conciliation.
God put her in the lower west tunnel of the Capitol, where some of the worst fighting occurred on January 6, 2021, Bisignano claimed NBC News, where she grabbed a microphone and urged a crowd of her fellow Trump fans to join the fight.
At first, she assisted law enforcement by providing testimony against a Californian Trump fan she knew. However, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson deemed Bisignano a hot mess and perhaps one of the worst witnesses she had ever heard, making her evidence unhelpful. Bisignano claimed that she had now overcome the challenge and emerged from it considerably stronger.
She declared that “the hunters have become the hunted,” calling for Jackson’s removal as well as the dismissal of the federal prosecutors who worked on her case. According to Bisignano, she must be impeached. Ms. Amy Jackson, she’s on the wrong side of history. I would like to speak with her briefly.
The celebration wasn’t limited to Bisignano. Supporters swiftly purchased MAGA caps from a seller outside the D.C. jail to give to inmates after they were released. Eric Ball, whose son Daniel was incarcerated on suspicion of detonating an explosive device in the lower west Capitol tunnel during the unrest, was among those present. “Anyone who denies that the riot was a setup is either extremely evil or irredeemably stupid,” Eric Ball remarked.
(After his release in Washington, Daniel Ball was arrested on firearms charges linked to prior convictions for domestic violence by strangling and battery against a law enforcement officer, making him one of only a few of the Jan. 6 rioters still in custody.)
Among those who continued to cling to the unfounded allegations that the 2020 election was rigged was Gregory Purdy, who was found guilty of six offenses, including attacking law enforcement.
When Purdy was released from the D.C. jail on Tuesday, he stated, “I think the people there were defending democracy, even if we have different opinions.” I think there were significant computational problems with our election.
After his case was dropped, Caleb Fuller, the younger half of a father-son duo accused with felony civil disorder for defying police on January 6, stated that he still thinks the 2020 election was rigged and that he did not witness any violence during the Capitol riot.
Upon his release from the D.C. jail, Ryan Wilson, who was convicted guilty of six felonies after prosecutors showed evidence of him using a pipe as a weapon against police in a Capitol tunnel, also referred to the charges against him as false.
Rachel Powell was given a five-year prison sentence (which she completed just over a year ago) for her acts on January 6, 2021, which included smashing a window at the Capitol with an ice axe. Powell responded, “You know what, when the police became violent and everything started getting out of control, I wish we would have just sat down,” when asked what she would alter if she could go back in time after being pardoned.
Others’ thoughts swiftly became more sinister.
Convicted of Capitol violence, William Sarsfield left the federal jail facility in Philadelphia and traveled to Washington to wait for friends to be released.
When asked what he would do next, he thanked Trump enthusiastically for his pardon and gave a vague threat: “We have to take care of our own house, so we need to regroup, go home, and find out the nefarious actors in local homes and towns.” and it begins there, Sarsfield stated while sporting a camouflage hat bearing the slogan “Biden sucks.”
After being pardoned and having his gun rights restored, Jacob Chansley, another well-known Jan. 6 felon, wrote on X that he planned to purchase firearms. Everything that is done in secret will be revealed! He went on.
Purdy and a few others did, however, make some encouraging remarks.
We still need to love one another because we are still brothers and sisters. Purdy told NBC News, “You have to make sure that you don’t have hate in your heart for anybody.” I thus extend my arm across to my liberal siblings and suggest that we look for areas of agreement.
In an interview soon after his release, Guy Reffitt, who was turned in by his son on January 6 for his involvement, declared his love for his son. Jackson, his son, told MSNBC earlier on Wednesday that he had purchased a gun for protection and that he couldn’t imagine feeling safe now that his father had been freed.
The majority of those who received pardons were gushing about Trump, whose fabrications about the 2020 election being rigged contributed to the series of events that brought many of them to the Capitol when the Electoral College results were about to be declared.
I’m grateful since he’s helped me reunite my family. Powell remarked of Trump, “I wouldn’t be out right now without him.”
Speaking over the phone to a small group of people outside the D.C. jail on Monday, one inmate claimed he and others had been watching as Trump made comments shortly after his inauguration address about pardoning convicts from January 6.
After implying that aides had urged him to omit that from his inaugural address in order to make the speech more cohesive, Trump told an overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall, “You’re going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages.”
Trump shortened the 18-year sentence of former Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted by a federal jury of counts of seditious conspiracy. Following his release, Rhodes made his first public appearance outside the D.C. jail, where he praised the president for acting morally and said that he and others had not been given a fair trial before a fair jury. (A federal appeals court that examined and rejected allegations of jury bias overturned several convictions on January 6.)
Reporters saw Rhodes on Wednesday in one of the Capitol complex’s House of Representatives office buildings. He claimed he was there to support the release of Jeremy Brown, another Oath Keeper, who is still behind bars after being found guilty of various federal offenses unrelated to January 6.
According to Rhodes, he also needs to be pardoned. No man is left behind.