Haddonfield, NJ Thanksgiving, November 28th, 2024

Dear President Trump,

Thank you for this opportunity to write to you. My name is Patrick Stedman. I am a non-violent J6er who served 1 year in prison at FCI Ft. Dix. I was originally sentenced to 4 years, but was released early on October 27th after maxing out my misdemeanors, in light of the Supreme Court’s verdict that the 1512 Obstruction felony was unconstitutional. I am currently out on bail, pending resentencing. As a result of legal expenses, my wife Kate and I have been staying with my parents these past few years in South Jersey along with our two young children.

Like well over a million other Americans, I came down to Washington, DC on January 6th, 2021 to protest the stolen 2020 election. It was a long arc that brought me there, but I will tell it to you as quickly as I can.

I am a fellow “Quaker,” although not from Wharton — I studied History and Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. The first time I heard anything you had to say was August 2015. I was a “politically disaffected” independent at the time and checked out of politics, finding the policies being promoted by both parties incomprehensible. Thinking at the time that you were simply a loudmouth celebrity who thrived on controversy, your run did not initially encourage me; I considered it just a publicity stunt, and focused my attention on building my newly-formed Dating and Relationship Coaching business.

That is until my aunt began complaining that you had insulted the other candidates onstage at the first Republican debate. When I asked why, she cited your comments about their support for our absurd trade policies with China and open-border illegal immigration. My ears perked up. ‘But he’s right,’ I thought, as she went on. ‘He’s actually telling the truth.’ I decided to watch the next debate myself, and was instantly sold on you. You were the first politician I ever heard who actually seemed to be addressing all the elephants in the room. And the fact that the entire system hated you for it made me love you even more. You were not only an honest man. You had balls.

Unfortunately, like most American men formed these past few decades, I hadn’t quite found my own balls yet. I was taught to be a “nice guy,” to be blindly accepting — even as we were descending as a culture into madness. But I didn’t know how to stop it. I was scared of being called a racist for opposing the woke-mob, of being rejected or hated. I was a well-liked person with a lot of friends. I didn’t want to lose any of that. I didn’t want to lose my standing.

And then I saw you go up there and face them all, to speak truth to power, without concern of the consequences. You had it all, and yet you were risking it — not for your own personal gain; on the contrary — because it was the right thing to do. You showed me how to have courage. Honestly, you showed me how to be a man. From then on, the standard was: if Trump could do it, so could I. I would never back down either, no matter the personal cost. I was going public with my views; I was going to proclaim proudly that I was MAGA.

As you might imagine, in those early days the cost was pretty severe. During the transition I lost most of my old friends, and became estranged from much of my family. My budding business, which had been off to a good start, was basically destroyed, as almost no one in my Ivy League network wanted to be associated with a Trump supporter. I had to rebuild the message and the audience, much of it around the positive masculinity and bold determination you embodied.

But the sacrifice paid off, and not just in our vindicating 2016 election win. It took a couple years, but now that I was aligned with the new zeitgeist, my business began to soar. I had a strong social media presence on Twitter, and a whole new cadre of friends who were like-minded and I could trust. By this point I began to understand much more about the nature of the deep state, and that this movement went well beyond surface politics; it was a spiritual battle, and indeed quite existential.

And so obviously, when the COVID lockdowns hit in March 2020, I saw there was more to it than met the eye. I saw that our country was under attack, and that you needed our support more than ever. I began using my platform to talk politics, analyze world events, and examine conspiracies, and even started a live-streaming show fully dedicated to these topics. When the 2020 election was stolen, this show became a rallying point for your supporters, and began drawing thousands and sometimes millions of views. I had anticipated the steal, but was so confident in your win and that justice would prevail, I became convinced the truth would emerge in time to keep you in power. You had seen it all coming too; there had to be a plan. I was disappointed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to review the fraud, and the Electoral College’s vote in favor of the false results. But we still had the certification on January 6th. And if that should fail — if Congress didn’t send it back to the states for review — I assumed the Insurrection Act and mass-arrests were next. After all, given the scale of the crime, these tools were fully in your rights to use.

It was with all this in mind that I came to Washington, DC on January 6th. I never intended to go into the Capitol; I came down there to hear you speak and show support, which I did. But when I approached the building and heard protestors screaming that the police — without provocation — had been attacking them with rubber bullets and tear gas, my impulse to not be a coward kicked in, and I ran towards the mayhem. I saw a crowd tearing up the steps to the Capitol, waving flags — undaunted by the insult to injury that the government was not only ignoring our voices, but attacking us — and I followed them in. I was loud, but I was peaceful. In fact, up until they murdered Ashli Babbit, most police inside seemed pretty relaxed and friendly, almost ushering us around, and I followed police instructions when they finally asked us to leave.

In retrospect, it seems obvious we were set up. But I had too much zeal — I was so caught up in the fight, and too interested in proving myself at that point in time, to listen to the prudence I now possess. But even still, I had no idea that I had committed a crime that day; certainly not a felony. I actually put videos of myself in the Capitol online to show how unperturbed I was about what I was doing. I thought it was just a raucous protest, and that I had stayed within the bounds of my protected First Amendment activity. At worst, I would get some petty citation like left-wing protestors always do; that’s all that ever seems to occur, even when they put people in the hospital and burn buildings down.

But suffice to say that didn’t happen. Three hours after you left the White House, my arrest warrant was signed. My parents’ house was raided the next morning on January 21st, and I was stuck there fighting my charges for the next few years, until I blew trial in June 2023 and was sentenced to prison that fall. My social media influence was cited heavily by Judge Howell in my case, and I believe made me a particular target for the DOJ.

I have told you my story for one reason, President Trump: so you understand that I have been all-in from the very beginning of all of this. Although no one in our movement has suffered or endured more than you, I can claim at this point — with most of my net worth destroyed and a year of prison behind me — to have taken my fair share of arrows for the cause. Yet while I might regret some of my youthful arrogance and recklessness, I don’t regret the losses I’ve taken for standing up. It was worth it. America was worth it.

But all of this sentiment is going to be washed down the toilet if you do what some individuals are suggesting you do, and only pardon the non-violent January 6ers.

I want to iterate that I do not believe it is your intention to be callous or stingy about these pardons. But the commentariat has become so vocal about looking at it on a “case by case” basis that I have felt the need to speak up. This approach is not only morally wrong, but practically impossible to accomplish fairly. And I hope I can persuade you why.

There is a concept in law called “fruit of the poisonous tree.” I’m sure at this point you are aware of it: the idea that an illegal act cannot be prosecuted if it was prompted by an illegal act by the government. It’s usually used as a defense in drug cases when the police entrap individuals. It also applies to January 6th. To the extent any police were injured that day — and let’s be honest, none of them were harmed seriously (unlike numerous protestors, some of whom were killed) — they were harmed because the police themselves fired munitions into a peaceful crowd for no justifiable reason. This is well documented by both witness testimony and open-source footage. And this matters, because all subsequent violence from protestors against police was in response to this.

This is especially relevant, because the “violence” of J6ers is in many cases extremely murky. Is holding a police officer’s riot shield to protect yourself as you’re being beaten “assault?” To Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, it is. What about gently rocking back and forth against a shield wall in a crowd? That’s what prosecutors have said, and they’ve put people, like your State Department staffer Federico Klein in prison over it. So when you start to look at pardons on a case-by-case basis, what evidence are you going to be using to determine whether someone was “violent?” The charges are extremely misleading. Even if you were to review the evidence files in the cases, you would find them often incomplete; the judges have disallowed exculpatory or contextual evidence in many of them. You would have to go above and beyond what the courts have done and conduct a whole new, comprehensive investigation. I hope you do that for other reasons: so that the public discovers the truth of what happened that day. But this will take time, and your men — because they are your men President Trump, we are all fiercely loyal to you — will be stuck for months if not years longer in prison in the meantime. And as I hope you will appreciate, to us in the community, this is unfair and unacceptable.

Not every violent J6er, of course, falls into this “fake violent” bucket. Some truly did attack police officers. But why did they do this? Let’s ask Ralph Celentano. Ralph was in the ellipse when the police began firing into the crowd. Soon after that, a policeman decked a peaceful grandmother who was holding a sign down a flight of stairs. Ralph subsequently locked arms with a few other men at the behest of an individual (who was never indicted, and we have strong reason to believe was an undercover agent), and had a brief back-and-forth pushing against the police line. However, Ralph really distinguished himself later when he shoved a police officer off a short ledge. The media and DOJ went wild with this footage, and I’m sure many advising you to go “case by case” will use it as a justification not to give Ralph a pardon. But what they won’t tell you is that Ralph hit that police officer because he was beating a protestor senselessly. Indeed, that protestor was surrounded by 10 other police officers, and a number of them were whacking him over and over again with their batons. Tellingly, the police officer Ralph pushed did not testify at his trial, and also did not file a “use of force” report after January 6th — because his use of force was not justified. But Ralph’s was. The police only stopped beating the protestor after Ralph intervened.

This is not to say that every violent protestor on January 6th acted understandably. I myself saw an individual get aggressive against a police officer inside simply because she was blocking a passage. I walked away from the scene, but at trial I saw footage that this individual later attacked her. (The government tried to make me responsible for this person’s actions, as if I had anything to do with it). And yet I would still pardon this individual, wrong as his behavior was, and not only because of the “fruit of the poisonous tree” argument — nor also out of the reasonable position that if he was indicted and certainly imprisoned, he’s suffered enough already, considering the policewoman’s injuries were extremely minor.

I would pardon him, and all others — regardless of their actions — because of the context around the January 6th protest altogether. You are not supposed to say this in public, but you know as well as I do Mr. President, that January 6th was in essence a protest against the ruling class for certifying a fraud against the American public. We were there, and we were angry, because Congress was not simply ignoring us, it was committing a crime against us. If some individuals went too far, it was nevertheless for the right reasons; they had legitimate grievances. That is why the deep state had hundreds of undercover agents on the ground, and it is why they set us up to begin with — they intended to invert reality, as they so often do, and accuse us of attempting to overthrow the government, even as they were doing it themselves. They created a false flag to cement their steal, and to justify the subsequent terror campaign against everyone who opposed them.

You were wise enough not to fall for their trap. Although I and many others wanted you to sign the Insurrection Act, had you done this, the country probably would have fallen into civil war — which is exactly what they wanted. You instead did a tactical retreat and let them “win;” I presume trusting that the public would wake up once the left’s mask dropped. Unlike those of us who entered the Capitol, you did not take the bait, and instead gave them enough rope to hang themselves. It was a brilliant and bold strategy, and your 2024 win has vindicated it; although America has suffered greatly under Biden, the country is more unified than ever, and we have the political capital now to achieve real justice and reform.

But I understood even in 2021 that this strategy would entail a lot of pain and persecution for us J6ers in the meantime. That was OK with me; although many criticized you for leaving us undefended, that’s war — pawns need to be sacrificed for strategic objectives, and I am well aware that’s what we are. I have been content to do my duty, and would have proudly spent many more years in prison if I knew it was necessary for you to prevail. Too much has depended on it, not only for America, but the world.

Yet we have won now, Mr. President, and you owe it to your soldiers — these patriotic Americans who gave everything not only for the country, but for you — to release and clear them all, unconditionally. This means violent or non-violent, and it means J6 specific charges as well as ancillary charges that came about as a result of these J6 arrests. For instance, Pete Krill received 9 months on an assault charge for J6, but was then randomly indicted again — while already serving his sentence — for possession of ammunition that the feds discovered years earlier during his arrest. (Pete has been a crime-free and rehabilitated family man for 20 years, but had felonies in his youth and is thus not allowed to possess ammunition or firearms). He was just this month sentenced to an additional 4 years for it. This extra charge, especially the lateness of it, was prosecutorial malice, and doing justice in his case would be pardoning him on both of these felonies; the ammunition charge was only possible because of the J6 arrest, and was indeed just another way to punish him for being in Washington that day.

The same applies even more so for Hatchett Speed, a veteran of naval intelligence who served not only in cybersecurity but bravely in combat with Special Operations Forces for nearly two decades. Speed received not only 4 years on non-violent charges for J6 like me, but was given 3 further years consecutively on a felony for possessing solvent traps in his storage unit, found during his J6 raid, which according to the DOJ “could have been used to make suppressors.” The whole case is absurd, considering he had permits for suppressors already, but the point is that this ancillary felony also needs to be expunged. Speed has suffered more abuse than most of us J6ers, receiving a dishonorable discharge two years shy of pension, despite having a distinguished service record. Beyond a pardon he should have his rank reinstated, and I would recommend using him in your administration — he is one of the most intelligent and capable men I have ever met.

These men not only deserve full pardons, Mr. President, but they are the ones who need them most. And it is this final point I will end with, because I have taken enough of your time as it is. With few exceptions, the non-violent offenders mostly got only misdemeanors or the 1512 obstruction felony like myself, which has now been overturned by the Supreme Court. Pardons would be nice for us, and a real honor, but let’s be honest — I’ve already done my time in prison, and misdemeanors are not the end of the world. When my supervised release is over in a year, I will have my life back pretty much entirely. I can manage without it.

But that is not the case for the remaining J6 felons; nearly all of whom have some sort of “violent” charge, and many years left to go on their sentences. Pardons are not only needed to free these men, but to enable them to have normal lives after; felonies entail lifelong penalties, including the loss of employability, travel, and second amendment rights.

Which is why if you pardon only the non-violent individuals, those of us who have sacrificed it all for you and the cause will understand that it is really just a fake, substance-less political gesture. The men who needed your grace and protection, the ones truly victimized by this corrupt regime will not have gotten it. And for what reason: to satisfy the egos of people who clearly don’t understand what happened on January 6th, or worse yet, don’t really care? With respect to your colleagues Mr. President, I guarantee they haven’t been through as much as us, and I don’t know why they care so much about restricting your generosity. It costs them nothing; it costs us everything. If they are telling you it will harm you politically, they are wrong — the pardons are an inconsequential issue expected by the public anyway, and as more information comes out, increasingly understood as justified.

But more than this, what they don’t understand is that leaving any J6er behind will be seen to your most loyal supporters as a betrayal. It will demoralize and frankly disgust your base; the Americans who have been with you from the very beginning out of principle, not opportunism. I am not speaking in the abstract. I have one of your most dedicated supporters for nearly a decade, and I am speaking for myself.

Which is why I want to make it clear, that if these J6ers with assault charges and the like are not going to be given pardons, I don’t want one either. Having a pardon from you would be one of the great honors of my life, Mr. President, but if my friends — the men I spent a year behind bars with — Pete Krill, Hatchett Speed, Salvatore Vassallo, Vincent Gillespie, Federico Klein, Ralph Celentano — don’t get them, I would decline my own. I have already been the victim of a parody of justice these past few years, and I would rather not be a part of the charade anymore. It would embarrass me, and turn that great honor into a disgrace.

Pardon us all, Mr. President, or do not pardon any of us.

Thank you for your time. God bless you, and God bless America. And Merry Christmas.

Sincerely,

Patrick Alonzo Stedman