On Tuesday afternoon, exactly five years since January 6, 2021, a few hundred Proud Boys, insurrectionists, and their supporters stood outside the very building they stormed that day, and bowed their heads in prayer.
“We know what you saw us through, Lord. We know that in the darkest hours—as we stood on street corners, as we stood rotting in cells, we know you did not leave us, you did not abandon us,” proclaimed Suzanne Monk, founder of the J6 Pardon Project. “We thank you for the miracle that you put through our hands. We are but vessels to your work, heavenly Father, and we ask that you hear us and you see us, Lord. And you see our cry for this country.… We have lived in faith for five years. We ask you to bless that faith, and bless our nation.”
This moment defined the tenor of the afternoon. The Ashli Babbitt 5 Year Memorial March started at the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, and ended with the placing of flowers and wreaths on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to honor the late insurrectionist, who was shot by Capitol Police as she tried to barge into the Speaker’s Lobby.
The event—organized by Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was tried, charged, and pardoned for seditious conspiracy on January 6—wasn’t just a victory lap. It was a spiritual homecoming reunion, a celebration of new life and vindication for J6ers.
“It’s like living a biblical story,” said Jake Lang, a J6er who was pardoned for attacking police officers. “God opened up the lions’ den for Daniel, and he opened up the prison for me.” Lang is running to fill Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s vacated seat in the U.S. Senate, and railed against “Black on white crime” during his speech.
As delusional as it may seem, why shouldn’t the J6ers feel this way? So many of them believed that the 2020 election was stolen. They believe that they were justified for storming the Capitol, and some claim that they were encouraged to do so by law enforcement. They believe that they were wrongly imprisoned, and some claim to have been tortured. And then Trump won the election and saved them. Those hundreds of pardons from President Trump after his 2024 victory—not to mention the administration’s active effort to recast the insurrectionists as political prisoners—only make J6ers feel more absolved. And they let that be known one year out from their pardons.
“We won, man.… They tortured us for years, solitary confinement for years,” said Proud Boy Jon Mellis, who was jailed and later pardoned for assaulting law enforcement. He runs a viral right-wing Instagram account called “patriotwildman.”
“Now I’m living in West Hollywood and dating a Playboy Playmate. Hey, man, my life is pretty good,” Mellis continued. “We’re getting naked models in hot tubs every weekend. So what am I complaining for?” As I left, Mellis told me that the Proud Boys were “the greatest fraternity the world has ever seen.” (Mellis made an appearance later in the rally, grabbing the microphone to yell, “Blow up the fentanyl boats, leave the cocaine alone!!!” to the crowd.)
Samuel Lazar, an insurrectionist who was jailed and pardoned for assaulting an officer, was similarly unapologetic—even as his participation in January 6 resulted in him being estranged from the mother of his two middle school–age children.
“I woke up every morning and said, Why? What am I doing [in prison]? Made no sense. I’m not a criminal,” he told me in a strong New York accent. “I had no regrets because I’m a patriot. I did nothing wrong.… [Today is] gratifying. It’s satisfying. It’s phenomenal. We were vindicated. And all we want now is to make sure that the people who died and lost their lives, the Patriots that lost their lives, are remembered.”
But his life doesn’t seem quite as rosy as Mellis’s.
“It still affects me.… I don’t even see my children anymore,” Lazar continued. “My children felt embarrassed at school because they demonized and defamed us. They were 11 and 13. When I went to prison, I came home two and a half years later … I missed a very important part of their life. So that’s how it affects me. Otherwise, I’m a businessman. I’m a very successful businessman, and it’s a testament.”
Proud Boy Barry Ramey—who was Lazar’s temporary cellmate in the Lewisburg Penitentiary (they’re “brothers for life” now)—was the only person I spoke to who expressed any kind of regret. He was sentenced to five years in prison for pepper-spraying a police officer.
“I tell my story honestly and authentically, and for many reasons. I did assault the police officer that day … the officer, John Riggleman.… I do feel guilty for pepper-spraying. And so if I could take that one action back, I would,” he told me. “But I tell people this: If I’m the bad guy, if I did something wrong, then explain to me what the 1,400 other people did—nothing wrong, nothing violent, and some of them were given more prison time than me.”
While the event was mostly jubilee, a few higher-ups I spoke to expressed a razor-sharp focus on what to do now that so many Proud Boys and insurrectionists were home free. For Ivan Raiklin and Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader, that meant running their guys for office.
“Every single person standing here should … be running for office,” said Raiklin, who rose to prominence for his involvement in election denialism and right-wing organizing. “Every single person that was weaponized by the last 10 to 11 years, by the Department of Justice of both Democrats and Republicans, by the Congress, by the weaponization related to J6 illegal election, the 2020 election heist, the Covid ‘plandemic,’ the January 6 fed selection, all of it—you need to take over your institutions at the local level and start building from the grassroots.”
“I think it’s really important that my guys run for office,” Tarrio told me. “And I’ve been encouraging them to run for office. You know, we’re very active in the local scene in Miami.”
“Would you ever run for office in Florida?” I asked Tarrio.
“Maybe one day. You know, [it would] be cool to see ‘Congressman Tarrio’ walking out of those doors. Hey, I might, I might piss some people off. And it might make some people happy. I know it’ll make the people in my district really happy.”
This event brought together various coalitions of the MAGA movement. There were folks there who were elated by the Trump administration’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (Ramey called it an “antiwar” move), while others wished the United States would just stay out of it. Some called for the destruction of AIPAC and railed against Miriam Adelson, while others made their Zionism known. Some openly expressed their desire for Trump to be president for life, while others saw Rubio or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as worthy successors. No one I spoke to felt particularly compelled by JD Vance. Mellis called him “aight.”
What did unite these people was an unflinching belief that their actions five years ago were the right thing to do—and their pardons proved that. One man I spoke to was even carrying his pardon around in a picture frame.
It’s clear that the insurrectionists feel as if they have a mandate. And don’t they? They invaded the U.S. Capitol, went to jail, and came out to a hero’s welcome from the president himself. There’s even an official White House page honoring the “peaceful patriotic protesters” of January 6.
So now, equipped with institutional legitimacy, smugness, and momentum, they’re setting their sights on elected office. We should be prepared for some of them to win.
