They Stormed the Capitol. Now They’re Selling Merch.

The Washington Post

15:05 JST, May 15, 2025

A man convicted of beating police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack now sells $50 “J6 Hostages” T-shirts and is launching a 22-stop nationwide “Freedom Tour.”

Another, who calls himself a “J6 Former Felon” on X, is soliciting donations for a personal “Freedom Fund” to support a cross-country RV tour with his wife. They want to spread their message about what he describes as “corrupted” legal, law enforcement and prison systems.

And a third who paraded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern around the Capitol and later told a judge his “very stupid” actions had made “a mockery of a very intense” day now hawks $200 toy lecterns featuring his viral silhouette.

Absolved by President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons and feeling vindicated by his reelection, rioters who once lay low in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol or otherwise felt unwelcome on mainstream platforms are taking on new identities as online influencers.

The Washington Post identified more than four dozen who now promote themselves online as “J6ers” and have worked to profit from their connection to the day’s chaos, recording podcasts, announcing runs for public office and advertising merchandise lines.

Many are finding a place on X, which under billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk has cut back on moderating election disinformation and become the MAGA movement’s main online home. Several said in interviews they felt free to openly identify as Jan. 6 “hostages” and “political prisoners” without fear of penalty.

“The culture has changed,” said former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in planning the attack. He was barred from being in Washington that day after being arrested before the riot. “Since I left prison, I’ve walked into this multiverse that’s cool as s—.”

By promoting their businesses as symbols of patriotic resistance, they are following the example of Trump, the dealmaker in chief, who auctioned off pieces of the suit he wore as he became the first former president to have his mug shot taken – an image his team has framed outside the Oval Office and plastered on T-shirts and coffee mugs.

In Pennsylvania, the “J6 Couple” Debra Maimone and Philip Vogel, who posted videos of themselves from the Capitol crypt, routinely advertise Confederate flags and Trump plaques from their wood shop, the Patriot Shack, to their audience of Jan. 6 supporters. Maimone, who has 196,000 followers on X, posed in a Trump bikini for the listing of an $800 American flag.

“To those that have supported us since J6, we were only able to start this new business venture because of YOU,” Maimone wrote on X, where she uses the name “’Merican AF.” “We could never thank you enough!!!”

When Trump granted a blanket pardon to virtually all Jan. 6 defendants, nearly 1,600 people were convicted or were still facing criminal charges related to the attack, which resulted in several deaths, assaults against about 140 officers and $1.5 million in damage to the Capitol. Some defendants had seen their marriages fail and businesses fold after their arrest. Certainly, they were owed something, several said in interviews, for how their lives had unraveled.

Trump administration officials have voiced support for paying taxpayer-funded “reparations” to the rioters, many of whom had been required to pay fines to help cover the day’s damage. In a Newsmax interview in March, Trump said he supported the idea of establishing a fund for the pardoned rioters.

“A lot of people in government really like that group of people,” Trump said. “They were patriots, as far as I was concerned.”

A reversal in fortunes

Mark Middleton said in an interview that he wears his participation in the riot as a “badge of honor.” A federal jury found him and his wife guilty of assaulting officers that day, but an appeals court vacated their convictions.

The Texas couple became popular among Jan. 6 rioters after they launched American Patriot Relief. The fundraising group pays mortgage and grocery bills for families of Jan. 6 defendants and raised nearly $160,000 last year, financial documents posted to the website show. In February, Middleton promoted a personal “Freedom Fund” on X, saying, “After 4 years of helping others we now find ourselves in dire need.” The couple said donors’ money would help them travel across the United States in a recreational vehicle, educating people about what they view as government corruption.

While some rioters stayed quiet in the aftermath of the attack, deleting social media accounts and following lawyers’ guidance not to speak publicly about their cases, many now are openly sharing their stories, soliciting donations and seeking to build their followings.

During their trials, judges tried to prevent defendants from profiting off their cases by ordering them to forfeit thousands of dollars they made through fundraising drives that claimed they were political prisoners. Now, Trump’s pardons have triggered a stark reversal in fortunes.

Some, such as Oath Keepers member Jessica Watkins, have pointed online supporters toward commercial endeavors that include self-defense classes, wholesale show businesses and Etsy shops.

Watkins, who has been posting about restarting her life to her 26,000 followers since Trump’s clemency order freed her from an eight-year prison sentence, recently said she wanted to offer “exclusive content,” such as a podcast, and polled her followers on what topics to discuss. She has also said she would auction off sketches for a fantasy book she wrote while she “was in the DC Gulag,” a reference to the D.C. jail complex.

Many of the rioters who gained viral attention during the attack have attempted to transition their notoriety into lasting fame. Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man photographed with his feet on a desk in Pelosi’s office, has nearly 30,000 X followers, and Adam Johnson, who paraded Pelosi’s lectern around the Capitol, has more than 100,000.

Johnson, who goes by “The Lectern Guy” on X, had previously been constrained by an October 2021 plea agreement that barred him from profiting off any products bearing his name or likeness for five years. After the pardon, Johnson said he launched an online store selling $5 magnets, $20 mugs and $30 coolers with his likeness. He estimates that he has made “a few hundred bucks” off store sales, in addition to upward of $500 a month through posts on X, and said he does not see himself as an influencer.

“I was out $100,000 in attorneys fees, another $5,000 in fines, not capable of finding gainful employment because of the picture,” said Johnson, 40, of Sarasota, Florida. “So yes, I am now monetized because of the pardon.”

Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman” known for his horned fur cap, has 158,000 followers and an online business, Forbidden Truth Academy, that promotes educational courses, “shamanic” consultations, T-shirts, gift cards and a memecoin. On the day of his pardon, he posted, “THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!! NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!!” The message was reposted 16,000 times, garnering roughly 136,000 likes and 4,500 replies.

Some Jan. 6 influencers said their newfound platform is a place to finally voice their rage. Jennie Heinl deleted her social media accounts in the run-up to her trial, believing everywhere she turned had become too hostile to Jan. 6 defendants like her. A mother of two from Pittsburgh, Heinl lost her job and her husband, a detective who worked on an FBI task force, after she said she followed the crowd into the Capitol Rotunda.

In court, her attorney said she was “extremely remorseful, embarrassed and ashamed” for participating in the “unjustifiable attack on America.” But after Trump won, she rejoined X, calling herself “J6er Jennie- Political Prisoner” and laying into what she called the “corrupt regime.”

Between selfies with her white Tesla, posted to show support for Musk, the company’s CEO, she has helped organize real-world Jan. 6 meetups, recorded podcasts and spoken bitterly about all the ways she believes defendants like her were wronged.

“I couldn’t talk for three years, so I’m of course going to spew it out on X now because I’m so angry,” she said in an interview. “And I’m not remorseful, I’ll tell you that.”

‘Never be forgotten’

In one way, the rioters’ transformation into influencers reflects a broader shift in American culture, in which anyone can go viral or become famous with the right video or online joke. But the rioters’ ascendance also reflects how the polarized country has fostered an online ecosystem that celebrates partisan lies and the rewriting of history, said Freddy Cruz, an extremism researcher and program manager at Western States Center, a pro-democracy watchdog group.

“Trump fans are obviously the people who are keeping up with this stuff online. The primary focus isn’t accuracy there; it’s just social engagement,” Cruz said. “If you can get enough attention and enough activity on your page, you can get a paycheck.”

But some experts questioned whether the rioters will be able to turn their prosecutions into real political capital or long-term financial success. More than half of the Americans surveyed in a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in late 2023 said they believed Jan. 6 was an “attack on democracy that should never be forgotten.”

“The fact of the matter is that most Americans still fully believe that what happened that day was wrong,” said Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counterextremism think tank. “I don’t think bona fides from being arrested and being released for participating in the Capitol riot are enough in this political moment to catapult anybody into the stardom they’re hoping for.”

After securing widespread attention, some Jan. 6 defendants have turned toward furthering their personal or political goals. Brian Mock, a Minnesota man found guilty of assaulting four police officers on Jan. 6, held a news conference in March outside the Capitol demanding prison reform, calling it “the evolution of Jan. 6 activism post-pardon.”

Some of the influencers have faced blowback online for capitalizing on their attention in ways that have driven many viewers away. Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter running for a U.S. Senate seat in Florida, recently lashed out online at Jeff Metcalf, the father of a 17-year-old fatally stabbed at a Texas track meet last month, after Metcalf said Lang, 30, of Vero Beach, Florida, was stirring up racial hatred over his son’s death. Metcalf’s son was White; the teen accused of fatally stabbing him is Black.

Lang in an interview dismissed critics as “boomers” reluctant to discuss what he perceives to be pressing issues.

“We’ve been lionized and, in some ways, become patriot folk heroes,” Lang said of the support for Jan. 6 defendants. “It’s quite the experience to go from, you know, considered a domestic terrorist and an insurrectionist by the establishment to being well-received and welcomed back in our country. We won. They lost.”

Others have said the online attention has been an incredible gift.

Christopher Quaglin said he knew Trump and his supporters would ensure his release from prison even after a Trump-appointed judge last year declared he was “a menace to our society” and a “disgrace,” citing evidence he had choked one officer and beaten others with a stolen riot shield over multiple hours.

As he expected, Quaglin was pardoned on the day of Trump’s inauguration – and, a day later, opened his X account, where he calls himself the “Persecuted Patriot.”

Quaglin, who was a commercial foreman in suburban New Jersey when he stormed the U.S. Capitol, has since gained more than 12,000 X followers. And he created a website where he has sought to redefine his own history, saying he had been “pushed into a [Capitol Police] officer by an Antifa member.” He said he has already raised $22,000 for personal use and for his “Freedom Tour,” during which he plans to drive his Ford Ranger across the U.S. to talk about what he described as inhumane conditions in prison, such as the lack of accommodation for his doctor-encouraged gluten-free diet.

One of his biggest stops came last month, when he said he was given a tour of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House and met with two Cabinet officials. He declined to share details but posted a White House email and a selfie with Trump’s framed portrait on X; he was also seen in a group photo, showing them posing on the building’s steps.

“Big huge thanks to our friends in the administration!!” the photo caption read.