Locked In with Ian Bick - I Went to Prison for January 6th | Eliot Resnick

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Elliot Resnick grew up in a stable, loving home and lived what many would consider a “normal life.” He worked in journalism, had a deep interest in politics, and reported on major national stories. But everything changed on January 6th, 2021. After attending the Capitol event that day, Elliot followed the crowd inside — a decision that would come back to haunt him nearly two years later. In a shocking turn, federal agents arrested him, and he was charged for his involvement in storming the U.S. Capitol. He was later sentenced to federal prison, facing the reality of losing everything — his freedom, career, and reputation. But his story didn’t end there. While serving time, Elliot became one of the few involved in the January 6th cases to receive a presidential pardon — granted by former President Donald Trump — leading to his early release. #January6 #CapitolRiot #PrisonStory #ExConStory #Prisoner #RealStory #RedemptionJourney #FirstHandAccount Connect with Elliot Resnick: X: @ResnickElliot Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 The Journalist Who Went to Prison – Introduction 01:21 From News Reporter to Federal Inmate 04:43 Visiting Hours, Family Support & What Prison Teaches You 10:44 Childhood, Upbringing & Early Lessons in Life 17:42 Discovering Politics & Finding a Voice 23:43 15 Years in Journalism – Covering the Stories That Mattered 29:57 Life Before Everything Changed 34:43 January 6th: Why He Went to the Capitol 41:43 Inside the Chaos – Crowd, Police & Personal Motives 49:43 After the Capitol: Regret, Reflection & Reality 55:52 Coming Home & Facing the Fallout 01:00:22 The FBI Knock & Facing Federal Charges 01:08:25 Inside Danbury Federal Prison – First Day to Daily Routine 01:15:46 Faith Behind Bars – The Role of Religion in Survival 01:22:13 Trump’s Pardon & Life After Prison 01:26:00 Lessons on Justice, Freedom & Redemption Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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From the Jersey Shore to upstate New York and Italy, their getaways are sure to take unexpected turns where comedy ensues. Watch the Four Seasons May 28th, only on Netflix. And so I'm thinking now, wow, we have an amazing opportunity now to get inside the building. What about law enforcement that got hurt that day? How do you feel about that? 6 o'clock in the morning. Bang, bang, bang, FBI. If you knew how that day was going to unfold beforehand, would you still have one?

And some black guy says to me, what are you? What are you? What am I? He's like, are you black, Hispanic, Jewish? I'm certainly not black. He was a journalist who covered politics until one day he wasn't covering history. He was standing in the middle of it. Two years after walking into the Capitol on January 6th, the FBI showed up at his door. He ended up in federal prison and then Donald Trump stepped in. Elliot, welcome to Lockton, man. Pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on the show, man. I never would have expected you to come to prison, go to prison. So crazy. I never expected that either. Yeah, I mean, that's always,

people are so fascinating with the stories where you look at someone and you have no idea that they went to prison until they, like, revealed that they went to prison, kind of like how I grew up and ended up going to prison myself. And, you know, those are the most, I think those are the really relatable stories because then it shows it could happen to everyone, anyone. Yes, I agree with you. And I think probably your experience also, you learned to be a teeny bit less judgmental in prison because you realize that, yes, there are people in prison who really did commit horrible crimes. But there are other people in prison just might have made one mistake or maybe didn't even really make a mistake. They did something, which was

maybe half legal, half not legal, and 99% of people never get arrested for it. And also in that person, for whatever reason the government wanted to come after. And then, you know, you just read the newspaper, oh, the person went to prison. He's probably, criminal. It's like, no, not really, actually. He's just a normal person who the government decides come after for whatever reason. Yeah, and it's always interesting when I can relate to a guest in the sense where you went to literally Danbury Federal Prison where I was. And you also had a friend you met there who got put in the shoe because he knew a guard from his past, which is exactly what happened to me. So if anyone that didn't believe that story, it happened out twice

at that Danbury Federal Prison. Yes, indeed. That's so funny. Does it feel weird being passing back through Danbury when you came here because this is Richfield, but Danbury you had to pass through the exit to get here. Right. So it was interesting. So my first thought was, wow, my mother actually made this trip every single Friday and my sister made the trip every single Sunday to visit me. And we take things for granted. It's, it is an hour drive for my sister. I think was an hour and a half. And they did it every single week. So now when I finish this podcast, I have to go and call them and thank them extra for visiting me every week. So that was very nice of them. You know, I was only in prison for two and a half months at the end of the day. So

you had another guest on here actually a judge a few months ago who said that he almost felt a team had embarrassed to talk about prison stories. He said because there are people who are in prison for five years, 10 years, 20 years, they have prison stories. They could call themselves prisoners. He said, he felt he didn't have the right to call himself really a prisoner, having just been in prison for nine months. I kind of felt the same way. I was in prison for two and a half months. My sentence was for four months. You get to prison. People ask you how long are you here for? And you say, they're there for five or ten years. You almost feel guilty and embarrassed in a certain way. So I wasn't in prison long enough really to, you say, what is it like feeling coming back to

Danbury, I wasn't so traumatized, you know, it wasn't there long enough, thank God. I think any kind of experience being away from home, whether it's like a day, a couple months, or years, you know, it just has that effect on the person. Like, because we've been through that, like the person that's been in prison for 10 years shares the same experience in some elements as a person that's been away for a week, you know, having that feeling of getting stripped out naked in front of a male guard or eating at the chow hall or, you know, sleeping on that bunk away from your family. There's some of those elements. Obviously, the experience as a whole is no comparison, but there are the elements that everyone can relate to.

Right. I agree with you. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in New York. Part of my childhood was in Detroit, but first, most of my life I've been New York except ages 9 to 16. Washington Heights is where we moved when I was five years old. That's a German Jewish community. I mean, it has a Hispanic community also in other communities, but the community I belong to was a German Jewish community. Mostly German Jews who came here right before the Holocaust, someone who came after the Holocaust and kind of recreated what they had in Frankfurt, Germany. Most of the immigrants were from Frankfurt. And Frankfurt's an extremely old Jewish community. It goes back at least a thousand years, I believe. So it has very rich traditions. You know, in most Jewish homes,

German is like a dirty language because of the Holocaust. But actually in the community I belonged in, if you go to the back of the synagogue, the old prayer books, the translation was in German. So it's interesting because they're from Germany. And so it was, So kind of nice to belong to that community. Like I said, I moved to Detroit when I was nine, came back when I was 16. I grew up in Orthodox Jewish home. Not sure what else you want to know. What did your parents do for work?

So my father was a physician. He was a very wise, smart man. He became a doctor when he was 21 years old. I believe in the 1970s when he became a doctor, I believe they actually announced it on the news when he became a doctor because he was the youngest doctor in the country. And so he worked in the Cornell University Hospital on 60. Street in New York and Manhattan. I think now it's called New York Presbyterian, Columbia and Cornell. They're both associate with it. My mother did not really work. She did a lot of activism.

She is a former NBC news producer. She left the job in 86. She didn't grow up, my father grew up Orthodox Jewish, like religiously Jewish. My mother did not. She grew up in Israel, but she grew up very secular. She even went to a Christian school in Israel, which is very unusual. But she actually came, she was born in Bulgaria. She moved to Israel when she was three. And in Bulgaria, the best schools were the Christian schools. And so her parents bleed very much in education. So they sent her to Christian school, even in Israel, just like they had gone to a Christian school in Bulgaria, even though they were Jewish. She discovered her kind of like her heritage much later in life. She was an NBC news producer, but she just, it was a very glamorous life, but something felt shallow to her. She felt

it must be something more meaningful to life, something deeper, something more everlasting. She went on a trip around the world. And there in Brazil, she happened to happen to bump into a Kabad Rabbi, Khabad Lubavich. My father actually had the merit besides being a doctor in the hospital and doing research also. He also actually was a personal physician of the Lubavir rabbi. I'm not sure if you've heard of him, but he probably was the most famous rabbi the second half of the 20th century. And so he had many followers who went around the world kind of opening Jewish centers to try to reach unaffiliated Jews. My mother bumped into one of them. And she wasn't so inspired by the rabbi. She was more inspired by the rabbi's daughter, who seemed to be very smart, very elegant,

very pretty. And she couldn't understand how someone who looked pretty and elegant. and who was smart, could actually believe in God and could believe in the whole religion. So anyways, she met this person was talking to this person for a long time.

Eventually our mother became religious. She continued working on NBC News for quite a while afterwards, but she eventually dropped it just because she had my brother. She had me. It's more difficult once you're a mother.

Also, it wasn't as meaningful to her once she had become religious. Anyways, so those are my parents. They both were very, very smart, also very loved ideas, and therefore also loved politics. Both of my parents,

parents were more right-wing leaning, more conservative leaning. My father grew up in Chicago, who always loved America, loved the founding fathers, loved for what this country stands for. My mother grew up in Israel, but she was a political science major and also loved the American Constitution. So, you know, I grew up with, I remember watching when I was 13 years old already, the 13, roughly, the Democratic and the Republican National Conventions in 96. So I was very heavily involved in following American politics. I also was heavily involved in following Israeli politics, because the 90s were the years when they had the whole peace process, with the Arabs, the PLO, and it was very frustrating for a right-wing Jew like me to see it

because Yasser Arafat is the father of modern-day terrorism, and yet Israel was seeding land to him and giving him things. And it didn't make things better if anything actually made things worse, because the Arabs sensed weakness, and they started, the rate of suicide bombs went up tremendously during the 90s. I followed both American politics and Israeli politics very strongly. I'm just mentioning this because it's relevant to later on to how I get to prison. Why do you think you're so fascinating in politics at that age? Like when I was in school, I didn't have any friends fascinated to that level in politics

other than following the election during the presidential election. People would talk about it. That's interesting. So I guess first of all, number one, my mother made a rule at a certain point. If I want to read the, back then I read the New York Times, we got the New York Times. If you want to read the New York Times sports section, you have to read at least one article in the regular main section. That was the rule.

So that was number one. So I was forced to read at least one new story a day just so I could get to the sports, which is what I really wanted to get to. I think I followed Israeli politics more strongly than American politics at first. I don't know. We discussed it at the Shabbas table. Some people, some Jews don't discuss politics at the Shabbas table. It's too controversial.

We did. I don't know. Clinton, you know, those are the years with Clinton. People either love Clinton or love to hate Clinton. I'm not sure. I found it interesting. I'm not sure I can't tell you really why. Although it probably wasn't until high school that I really got into it much more.

I would say American politics. And sports you were very much into too? Yeah, sports I was into since, you know, probably is like, I think nine is when I started following sports. My brother was listening to New York Yankees on the radio and I decided I have to be like him and have to, yeah, listen to the Yankees. Did you play sports or are you just like watching? I loved playing sports.

And that's actually one thing that made Danbury life not so bad is because there's a gym there. So you can play sports for an hour or two every single day, which is what I did. I didn't get to enjoy it. All right, because you told me you're in a show, which is terrible. In this shoe, you're only out for like an hour a day or something. I believe. But no, but otherwise there's the gym in Danbury. So I played sports for an hour or two every single day. The first time since high school that I was playing sports regularly. So yeah, I love playing sports in school. I don't play professionally, but I played in school recess, you know, morning afternoon during lunch, after school sometimes. And yeah, I followed, you know, I'm from New York. I love the Yankees, I love the Mets too. I know you're not supposed to do that. I was cheating a little bit by going for both teams. But yeah, Giants, Jets, Rangers, Islanders. Aside from those passions, how would you have described yourself as a kid? I think more or less regular.

I wasn't kind of like, I wasn't, I wasn't, like, non-mainstream. I didn't want to be non-mainstream. I wanted to be kind of be, I remember actually as an older kid or a young teenager, wanting to just be like a nice, normal middle-the-road person because I remember hearing adults talk about teenagers as like these uncontrollable, like, you know, unpredictable creatures that you don't know what they're going to do next. I'm like, why would you want to be like that? Like, just be mature and act normally and act properly.

I actually always wanted to be, I was like a kid who wanted to be an adult, kind of. You know, now when it came to sports or those kind of things, I love being a kid in that type of way. But in terms of like maturity, I love like being at the adult table. If I'm kind of a celebration or at any formal event, I love like being able to behave properly, you know, not just being this wild kid or wild teenager. People have to like, what's he doing? What kind of mood is he in? Like, no, just be a nice, normal person. So I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't really out of ordinary in that sense.

I wanted to kind of be mainstream. It wasn't rebellious at all. When you were a kid, what do you know about prison? or the criminal justice system or anything like that? Basically nothing. Like most normal people, I thought prison is where people go who are criminals, people who break the law.

I mean, I'll just say this, though. I mean, I did grow up knowing that there were people who were idealistic who went to prison. Me, I knew Henry David Thoreau famously went to prison. You know, the 19th century, he's the one who wrote the essay on civil disobedience. He didn't agree with slavery. He didn't agree with the Mexican-American War.

And he said, I'm not going to pay taxes to a government that is doing things that I find moral objectionable. I knew about that already. Either in high school or college, I remember reading his essay and being inspired by it. Martin Luther King, obviously, Jr., obviously went to jail for idealistic reasons. I knew there were rabbis and Soviet Russia who went to jail because they were trying to teach children Judaism, and Soviet Russia obviously was extremely atheistic, and they were caught, and some of them were sent to prison, some of them were even killed. And also, you know, because I followed the Israeli politics, I knew about the underground in the 1940s. There was a Jewish

underground trying to get the British out of Palestine. Back then it was called Palestine. Now it's called Israel, but people forget that. People think Palestine means always Arab. The Palestine Post was the main Jewish newspaper in the 40s. And I think the first few prime ministers of Israel actually had Palestinian citizenship. So Palestine really was just the name. I mean, originally it was called the line of Canaan. Then it became the line of Israel, then became Judea.

And then the Romans, once they conquered Judea, decided to rename it Palestine to sort of get rid of any memory of the Jews. But anyway, so I had read about the Jewish underground in Palestine in 1940s, and they also obviously had gone to prison for attacking the British. and some of them had even been killed and hanged by the British for being involved in activities. So I was aware of people who had gone to prison for idealistic reasons. I knew there was that category. But for the most part, I thought people who went to prison were bad people, not people you really want to associate with.

What was your career path after high school? I went to Yeshiva University. I mean, I went to first to an all-day Jewish yeshiva, they call it, where you really study Jewish topics all day for two years. But afterwards, I went to Yeshiva University, which is kind of like a half-university, half-Yushiva. Chiva, hence Lechiva University, the name. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I majored in history, which is one of those majors, you can do anything you want with.

You know, if you want to become a doctor or something, you have to major in a math or a science. But otherwise, you know, any humanities, history, philosophy, you can do whatever you want afterwards. And I still wasn't sure what I really wanted to do. Shortly after college, my mother has a friend who is the owner of the Jewish press. The Jewish press is the largest and oldest independent Jewish weekly in this country. She said my son needs a job, and I got on the phone with her, and the owner of the paper said, would you like to work for us? Do we need a reporter?

Do you think you could do that? I said, I don't know. I'll try. And she gave me a shot. And the next few days, I studied the New York Times, again, before I stopped reading it. Because back then, I still thought it was more or less a normal newspaper. And I just studied to see how articles are written. What does the first paragraph look like?

What does the opening sentence look like? Just to understand how you sort of frame a newspaper article. because I'd written essays in college, but never written a news article or anything of the sort. And anyway, so I started working at the Jewish press, and I guess they were happy with my work because I remained there for the next 15 years. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason. Cayman Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors.

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Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacidstads, ginger tea and milk. Habaniero, more like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. I didn't realize how expensive the New York Times is because when I was in prison, I was like, Dad, can you subscribe me the New York Times just so I had something to read, especially when I was in the shoe. And I was the only one that had the New York Times because it's so freaking expensive. Like it's like, it's like, it was like a hundred something or almost $200 a week to get it every day. A week? Yeah, it was a really, it was a really, expensive. It was a lot for the New York Times subscription. It was something crazy. That's insane.

Because prison or just in general? I think it was just in general. I think I had every section, like there was add-ons too. I think there must have been like some magazine add-ons too. All I know was very expensive. I was like, we could stop paying for this. He spent a lot of money. Maybe it was a little less than $200 a week, but I think on average it came out to $500, maybe $600 a month for the New York Times. Wow. It was expensive. But that's like gold there, having the New York Times. But it's also good in the shoe because you could do the crosswords and you do different things like that. Yes. So there was a one January 6th organization, and I'm sure we'll get to that.

That's eventually why I went to prison, that if you wanted, they would give you a free subscription to the Epic Times, which granted isn't the best newspaper in the world, but it was something and had different puzzles. Crosswords. Crossword and other puzzles also, so that kept me busy. So in those 15 years you worked there, did you ever get in trouble, like a legally, a parking ticket to traffic? tickets arrested for anything? Yeah, no, standard traffic tickets and parking tickets. Yeah, that I got, but no, nothing.

And it's funny, we're three in the family, my older brother and younger sister. If you ask anyone on the outside, who is the most likely to go to prison? I would have been number three on the list. Because like I said, I was kind of the more straightforward type of guy. I always hated people, like, you know, there are some people who are sort of too clever for their own good, not criminals, the people who are too clever for their own good. So they'll, in any industry, they'll try to read in between the lines, try to get around the law, you know, or they'll try to cut lines. I was never that way.

Like, you know, if we went to the amusement park and said age like, you know, six for, you know, paying a certain amount. And, you know, I had a friend who was like, you know, six and a half. I would say like, no, no, he has to pay, you know, the above six price because he's already six and a half. Like, I was a very, you know, straightforward type person. So, no, I never got into trouble with the law at all until January 6th. So January 6th, 2021, what happens? So I went to the Capitol thinking there was going to be a rally there, which is what had been advertised. And there were several rallies that had been advertised, the main rally at which

Trump spoke, but then there was going to be at least one more rally afterwards, which was advertised for either one or one-thirty. And so I went to the second rally after the Trump rally finished, like I thought I was going to. It was going to be a regular rally. I'm approaching the Capitol along with tons of other people, probably tens of thousands of people, if not more. And I'm like, as I approach, I'm like, where's this rally? Where's the stage? Where's the cordoned off area, you know, usually there's like fences or something or gates. And it was like bizarre because it was no stage. There was no coordinate off area. There was no area where everyone was congregated. People were all over the place. I'm like, what's going on here? Then I see construction,

which also like, what's this? I mean, it was construction for the inauguration, but I didn't understand what that was also. So I see scaffolding. I'm like, the whole thing's weird. And then I'm also, I had not been to the capital since I was like 12 years old or something like that. And I had like this vision in my mind that at the second rally, we'll like, we'll be protesting and they'll hear us in the Capitol because there'll be little windows, they'll hear us inside, or maybe there'll be comicsmen walking by, and they'll see how mad we are. And granted, you know, it's not going to accomplish anything, but at least they'll know how upset we are. And if they do the wrong thing, at least they'll do the wrong thing with a guilty

conscience, maybe, something like that. But when I get to the Capitol also, I see it's like massive, massive structure, which I didn't realize it was that big. I didn't even see any windows on the area where I was approaching. So I'm like, they're not even going to know we're here. And as these, like, thoughts were percolating through my mind. Someone says, let's go to the side of the building. I'm like, okay, we'll go to the side of the building. Now, by the way, I'm already past where I'm supposed to be, but I didn't know that because they were already, they were like small gates, like maybe like

a foot or two feet tall, like plastic little things that had been ready ripped down or knocked over like an hour before I got there or 45 minutes before I got there. So I was already in an area that I wasn't supposed to be, but I didn't know that. And I don't think 99.99. 5% of the crowd knew that. But anyway, so we start going to the side of the building.

We turn one corner, we turn another corner. And then as I turn the second corner, like way up ahead, I see like a whole crowd of Trump supporters, kind of like storming ahead. And I see like maybe like five or ten guards, turn around and like run up half the staircase. So I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Something interesting is going on up there. And I get closer and closer and closer. And also, by the way, mind you, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking to myself that, you know, we had just witnessed the whole summer of riots from the left. They were upset about George Floyd in Minnesota. And they

had a, you know, burn, looted, and even killed. I think 19 people were killed that summer. And they were, you know, breaking down glass stores and stealing sneakers and all of stuff like that. So I'm thinking to myself also kind of like, you know, maybe it's our turn now also. You know, I mean, I thought this a teeny bit later, but I kind of had that in the back of my mind. Like, you know, if they did that and they were allowed to do that, maybe we're also allowed to do something if we're a little bit upset also. And we were very, very upset because we thought the election either was stolen or was highly questionable. I wasn't sure for it was stolen, but I did know there were many, many, many questions. And I thought enough questions that we deserved answers.

There were mainstream polls that said, I think 70 percent of Republicans. thought something was fishy. 10% of Democrats thought something was fishy and 30% of independents thought something was fishy. So we're not talking about like 1 or 2% of the country. We're talking about like almost 30, 40% of the country. And when that many people have questions, I think the government owes them answers.

And it definitely looked fishy. Put it that way. You know, you stop counting in the middle of the night. So they should have a press conference and say, look, we know it looked very fishy, but let's explain to you what happened. Here's what happened. But they didn't do that.

Instead, they basically said, jump in a lake, we couldn't care less. What do you think? You could scream until you blew in the face. We couldn't care less. get lost. That was their attitude. They basically gave us the silent treatment for two months. They gave us no op-eds, no

interviews on mainstream television. They basically ignored us, you know. So it's like giving a kid a silent treatment. At a certain point, the kid's going to explode. So, you know, it's a very effective punishment, but it's also, anyway, so that's basically what they did to us. And so, and we just come from a rally four hours, all the people at the rally

were saying, people among us and the speakers how the election was either stolen or maybe was stolen. So we, all these things were, you know, in our brains, It's like, you know, stolen, stolen, or questionable, questionable, questionable. And then we get to a capital. And we know in the capital are the politicians who are doing these things, who are either stealing it or about to certify election, which is highly, highly questionable. And I get closer to this crowd of people.

And they're all now at the front, at the bottom of the staircase, kind of like the first like four or five levels. They're kind of congregated there. And they're being held back by maybe like five or ten guards. Like, that's it. And after like two or three minutes, the guards realized they can't hold us back anymore. So they turned around and ran up the stairs. And so that's when I realized now we really have an opportunity. That's what was going on in my mind.

Opportunity. You know, they've been ignoring us until now. They didn't want to hear a word we had to say. Now we actually could go in the Capitol and scream at the politicians directly. And that they won't be able to ignore. Because if we're in the Capitol, in Congress, you can't ignore that. That's like a crisis of major proportions. And so I'm thinking now, wow, we have an amazing opportunity now to get inside the building.

Now, granted it took like another 15, 20 minutes until we got in the building. there were people, many people who walked through open doors that was not the case where I walked through. We actually pushed our way in. But it took like 15 or 20 minutes. And the reason I was eventually arrested is because I ran up the staircase.

I was kind of like, you know, I could go through all the details. I'm not sure if you're interested in it or not. But it kind of like it was pushing back and forth a little bit, not really with our hands, so much more with our bodies. Like I actually never push a policeman with my hands, but just when you have a crowd of hundreds of people behind you

and just like 10 guards in front of you, there was a lot of pushing back and forth just with our bodies. Because, you know, whether you want it to or not, people behind you were pushing into you. So, and eventually at a certain point, we actually got kind of like in front of the policemen. But we couldn't get inside the building because the doors were locked. A double set of doors, we got through the first set of doors.

Those weren't really locked. The second set of doors were locked from the inside and they pushed, the doors went out. To open them, you couldn't push in and have to sort of pull them out. And it was locked and no matter what we were doing, we couldn't seem to get it open. I even asked the guards like, what do you guys want? I'm like, we want to get inside. He's like, well, it's locked. It's like, well, so open it for us.

He's like, I don't have the keys. Even if I wanted to get inside, I couldn't get inside. That's what the guard told me. And I thought he was telling the truth, but like, no one knew that behind me. There was crowds of hundreds of people. And it was pushing back and forth. At a certain point, we were in front of the guards, basically next to the doors. And so the guards were mostly behind us, actually.

And there was a guard behind me who was pepper-spraying people in front of me. And so at first I did nothing because, like, he's, you know, I'm not going to touch him. He's a policeman at the end of the day. But then I think to myself, like, no, he's pepper spraying people. I felt like a chump, you know. Pepper spray stinks rather badly. That's number one. Number two, there were some people in the front of me who were actually trying to get

through the doors. They had like a blackjack. They were trying to knock the window paint out. Now, I probably would not have done that myself. I'm not the type. But I definitely wanted him to do it. I wanted him to break the glass and open the door. So I'm like, I'm not going to let this policeman behind me pepper spray these people in front of me

who are trying to open the door. So eventually I lifted up my hand and grabbed the, wrist of the policeman. And I held it for a total of two and a half seconds. And he basically gave out pretty quickly, actually. The policeman gave up. He stopped pepper spraying people. But I'm on video doing that. And so eventually I was charged with both assaults, because I touched the policeman, and with obstruction, because I impeded, interfered with a policeman who's trying to do his duty in the course of a civil disorder. Sorry, I think civil disorder, I think, sorry, was the actual felony that I was charged with. So those were the two felonies I was

charged with, I was also charged with four misdemeanors. Every January 6th person was charged with the same four misdemeanors, which is parading and picketing in the Capitol, unruly conduct in the Capitol, and things of that nature also. So once you grabbed his wrist, how much longer were you at the Capitol for? Do you make it inside? Yeah, I did make it inside. So after that, the doors were open maybe probably three minutes after this pepper spraying incident. It was eventually open from the inside. I didn't realize that because there were multiple break-ins, actually, and I did not know that at the time, but someone basically from the, I think we were on the east. Someone on the West opened it from the inside,

which was the only way to get it open, because even though someone had broken the glass, he had succeeded in breaking one of the glass panes, but he still wasn't able to open it, but someone from the inside did open it. We got inside. I was inside the Capitol for 48 minutes, according to the FBI. Do you think you were actually in there for 48 minutes? Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, yeah. And what were you doing during those 48 minutes? So I wanted to go into the Congress and scream at the politicians.

To me, that's kind of like it would have been the end of the protests. us going into the Congress kind of like flooding the Congress with hundreds or even thousands of people and then like I don't know what happens next but that's already you've created a crisis and maybe you've given the politicians also something to work with that's what I think the Republicans should have done

is somebody you use the crowd for your own benefit which is what I think what the leftist politicians did during the summer of riots I don't very few Democrats said that they were okay with the riots I don't know if any of them said they were they were okay with it but basically what they said was look this is what they said I don't believe it

but there's so much racism in this country, so much police racism in this country, that we understand why the people exploded. And if you want the people to stop exploding in the street, you have to solve your police racism problem. That's essentially what most democratic politicians said, more or less. I think the Republican politicians should have done the same exact thing. It said, look, we may not be for breaking into the Capitol,

but we understand why these people are burning mad. They've been begging for answers for two months. You will get them answers. Let's work something out, and then we can tell them to calm down. But in the meantime, we understand why this happened. So I thought we kind of created a crisis, and the politicians could have used our crisis to their advantage. They didn't at the end. They could have delayed the vote.

They could have said, look, they could have said, look, so much happened today. We can't get the capital back in order in time. You know, let's delay the vote. And once the vote was delayed until January 7th, they easily could have delayed until January 20th, because the law says you have to certify the election on January 6th. Once you get to 12.01 midnight, you're not following the law anyway. So the politicians go to said, look, it's already past midnight. Let's give us another two weeks to figure out what's going on with the election.

Let's do a quick audit or something. But they didn't. They had the opposite reaction. And they threw us all under the bus as far as I'm concerned. Anyways, but that would have been the end of the protest as far as I'm concerned. Us going to Congress and flooding the Congress halls with protesters. When I got inside the in the Capitol, though, very quickly, and I came into the lobby, and I turned left.

I didn't know where I was going. But very quickly I saw there was kind of like a line of policemen in the Capitol. I didn't realize. I thought the police were outside the Capitol, not in the Capitol. And so very quickly I saw like 15 or 10 policemen in the capital not letting us go further. So I'm thinking to myself, we need to do in the capital exactly what we did outside the capital. We need to overwhelm them. So we need more people inside.

We don't have enough people. So I guess I'm going back and forth to the doors to try to make sure more people came inside. Because at a certain point, the policemen closed the doors. So they were closed for a little bit. Also, the only like one door was open for a while, not both doors. So I started looking for another entrance. I started going around the capital looking for another entrance that I could open to the crowd outside. And I spent like a few minutes doing that also trying to get people to also help you open this door.

Because I found the door and it seemed to have only one policeman guarding on the outside. But I can't push open a door myself with the policemen there. So I started looking for other January 6 protesters to help me open this door and force it open to help more of the crowd come in. So I was doing that also. I kept going back and forth also to see if we advanced in the line anywhere with the policemen. Do we have enough people? Are we overwhelming them? I didn't know where Congress was also.

I went downstairs because some protesters were saying come downstairs. I had no idea. So I went downstairs. There are two, so the same exact thing. Like 20 of us and like 10 of them, policemen. So I'm like, I kept on thinking to myself, we need more people, we need more people, we need more people. That's like, that's what was going on in my brain the whole time. We need more people.

So I spent a good portion of the time just like getting, trying to get more people inside the building. At a certain point, I realized we had lost. Lost by meaning there were starting to be more and more policemen and fewer of us. Instead of us progressing further to wherever, again, I didn't know where Congress was. Wherever it was, I knew it was somewhere further. instead of us going further, I started seeing instead of we were actually being put, we were retreating.

The policemen were starting to establish more and more of a line and pushed us back. So that's when I knew that the whole protest was over. Once I knew the protest was over, I kind of stayed there anyways for like 10 minutes, you know, why not? There were some benches there. I sat down. I thought me, I need to use the bathroom. I thought me I'd use the bathroom in the Capitol. One time I'm there.

I didn't find the bathroom. I saw a pool of blood, which was probably Ashley Babette's blood, but I didn't find the Capitol sorry, the bathroom. There was a lot, at a certain point, there was cigarette smoke, there was weed smoke, and there was pepper spray in the capital, all at the same time.

So that got to be a little bit much after a while. Like, you know, like, I don't mind cigarette smoke so much. I don't like weed smoke. And also on your eyes, it was getting to be a little bit hazy in there. And I saw, again, more and more the guards were just sort of pushing us out. So I'm like, I don't have to, what's a point of waiting until the guards push us out? I might as well just leave now. So eventually, I left.

that according to the FBI, I think I was there at 226, I entered the building, and I left at 314. Were you witnessing a lot of vandalism inside? No, I don't think I witnessed any vandalism inside. Actually, the first thing that happened when I came inside is, you know, I think they're called stanches. It's like in the theater or... Yeah, the red velvet type things. Exactly, the red, yeah. So someone's actually started knocking them down.

And someone else immediately said, no, no, no, don't knock them down. We're not here to, you know, to destroy anything. You have like statues, plenty of old statues in the capital, many august old paintings in the capital. Not a single painting was touched, not a single statue was touched. If the left was in the building, the building would have been on fire. But we did not really go into the building to destroy it. As far as we were concerned, metaphorically speaking, we were in there to save the building, not to destroy it. We really thought we were there to save the integrity of the election.

Again, you could say we were wrong and we were made delusional, but at least in our minds, that's what we were doing. We were there for patriotic reasons. We were not there for unpatriotic reasons. So we weren't going to destroy anything. Why should we? I mean, there were certain windows broken. But even those windows that were broken, they were broken by protesters who wanted to get inside the building. Meaning it was functional violence. It was utilitarian violence.

It was violence to an end. It wasn't just random violence. Or we want to steal some sneakers. We just want to, we're angry. We want to let rid of some steam. Let's knock down all these, let's bash some glass to feel better. That's not what we were doing. We were doing something with a very direct purpose.

So I don't think I saw any vandalism in the Capitol. I was there as far as... Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel,

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and that's where maybe the media could spin it as they're violent or they're causing destruction. Yes, I mean, I only know what I saw. I can't tell you about what I didn't see. I mean, but I do agree with you. When you have a crowd of thousands of people, at least thousands, I remember even when I was actually outside the Capitol, still kind of pushing to get in.

And there were times where it was a little bit rougher because they're getting a crowd of people, so it was pushing back and forth just with our bodies. Some people were falling down. And at one point, actually, a policeman dropped his clip of bullets because of all the pushing.

I actually bent down, picked up the clip of bullets, to have the policeman on the shoulder, and said, here, you drop this. Because, like you just said, I figure in any crowd that big, you're going to have some crazy people. And I don't want a crazy person

with a clip of bullets. I want the policeman to have the bullets. I just want to get inside the building. I don't want any violence. I don't want any of that stuff. So there might have been, I mean, I was, and in the videos that I saw, most of us were

screaming, let us in, or whose house, our house, or stop the steel, or USA, those were the chance that I heard. You know, afterwards, you do see on some videos, some people say, hang, Mike Pence. And those were the videos that were blasted on the media. And I don't even know how long the chant was said for. It might have been

just said for 10 seconds, but those were the chance that were shared all over the media. Where I was, again, a more patriotic chance. But I agree with you, there might have been some people in the crowd that big, you know, who had bad intentions. What about law enforcement that got hurt that day? How do you feel about that? I have mixed feelings. I mean, first of all, the question is, I mean, there was a lot of spin

on what happened that day. There was someone who died, policemen who died, and everyone said we killed him. Turns out the medical examiner for Washington, D.C. said he died of a stroke the following day, January 7th. So at best, you could say that maybe all the stress we caused him the previous day kind of like contributed to his stroke the following day, but there's no medical evidence that we directly killed him, quote, unquote. I was in prison with the person who they accused of killing him. He spent three and a half years in prison. He was set to sit another three, four years in prison. He pepper

sprayed in the direction of this police officer Brian Sidnick. And they accused him, and they tried to accuse him of murdering him. Eventually, they didn't really stand up because there was no real direct evidence that he had killed him. But it was in the news, and it was on the media, so I guess the judge felt he had to give him a harsh sentence. So there was no,

you know, two, four of us died, actually. Actually, Babette was shot in the neck. Boyland, I forget her first name, was trampled by a law of law enforcement, not intentionally trampled, but she was trampled, not on my side of the building, another side of the building. And there were two other people who died of heart attacks, but people say they might have died of heart attacks because there were stun grenades that were shot, you know, things that blew up, like, you know, right outside their ear.

Not that it was harmful, you know, it's not an explosive that harms you, but nonetheless, maybe the shock of it. I don't know if they died a heart attack or not. Whatever it is, there were four of us who did die, though, and Ashley Babette for sure died of, and probably Boyland died also. They claimed she died of a drug overdose, but, presumably she died from being trampled also. So there were deaths on our side. There weren't really any deaths on their side, except this police officer who, again,

very questionable if we caused it. If he did die from us, of course it's a tragedy. I don't celebrate that at all. I can't imagine he's a young guy also. I think he has a wife and I don't know if he had a family. Obviously, it's horrific. But in any struggle, there's always, you know, called collateral damage you want to call it.

I mean, if you start focusing on the collateral damage of anything you do, you never do anything in life at all because there's always collateral damage, somewhere along the way, metaphorically speaking, or even literally speaking. You know, the American Revolution, I'm not comparing the two, American Revolution,

30,000 Americans die, but I'm sure many British died us, though. Any war people die, you know, when we dropped the atom bombs in Japan, you had 150,000 people who died, who were all innocent, but no one focused on it at the time because, you know, we thought we were right,

we wanted to win the war, we wanted to save the lives of American soldiers, and so that's what happened. So, of course, I'm not happy about deaths. We didn't try to cause any deaths. We just tried to get inside a building. If accidentally somebody along the way, if this person died from the stress, you know, from our protests,

again, what are we supposed to do? Never protest because someplace men might have stress and might die of stroke. Again, it's a recipe of never protesting anything ever. Because, yeah, you might call someone some stress. But, you know, it wasn't intentional at all, so I know. How do you feel about, like, the famous pictures from that day of the guys sitting behind the desk

and going into the private offices. Do you think that was just more of like a playful thing? I think it's a playful thing. You said a bunch of regular, I mean, I don't mean hilly-billy in a bad sense. I mean, it's like in the best sense of the word. Kind of like the salt of the earth. Just regular, these aren't high-powered lawyers

or doctors or businessman. These are just regular, normal people from all over the country. People came, I spoke to a few people. I'm here from Texas. I'm here from Ohio. I'm here from, I think, Colorado. A woman and her son. they just came because they wanted to do something

they thought patriotic. They said we're here because we're concerned about the election. Trump said we should come, so we came. He was just regular, normal people. And the guy was like in Nancy Pelosi. I mean, I don't know about you. I don't really know what your politics are. I even Googled you. What are his politics? I couldn't really get a straight answer. So I don't know what your politics are.

And maybe if your podcast, it's good for people not to know your politics. But a lot of people, and I think even a lot of Democrats, but certainly a lot of Republicans have utter contempt for politicians, or most politicians. So they view people like Nancy Pelosi is like out of touch snobbish woman. So for someone from like middle of nowhere,

let's say he's from Oklahoma, I don't know if he was, but let's say he's from Oklahoma. For a hilly billy from Oklahoma to put his feet on the desk of Nancy Pelosi gives him an immense pleasure. And it gives people like me also a little bit of guilty pleasure to see that. And honestly, I actually was so happy to see all those Trump flags

all over D.C. because again, D.C. is usually populated by rich, powerful people who don't really care for the regular folks. For the most part, most of them don't. And for the first, and kind of like we took over their spot. These are people from the places that they don't really want to associate with, not fancy restaurants. You're the people who go to the cheapest restaurants. And these are the people who took over DC that day. So I enjoyed the fact that these people took over DC that day, for whatever reason, wherever the cause was, I would have enjoyed it. So yeah, those pictures,

I thought they were playful. I don't know. If you knew how that day was going to unfold beforehand, would you still have one? That's an interesting question. Because you said you were expecting something completely different. Yeah, I was expecting something completely different. If I knew anything illegal had been planned, I would not have gone. That said, I think I would do it all over again.

Because what I did, I knew it was illegal, obviously, to go into the Capitol, pushed past policemen. Obviously, I knew that was not correct. But in the moment, I thought that was the right thing to do, and I still think it was the right thing to do in the moment. But had I known in advance, you're going to Washington, D.C. to do something illegal? No,

I would have not have gone to D.C. You leave that day, you leave the Capitol. Where do you go first? Like, what's the first thing you do? I went back home that night on a megabus. My mother picked me up in the station, like one in the morning. I did not think anything would happen to us at all. I didn't.

And many people didn't because the proof is many January 6 people posted pictures of themselves in the Capitol on their social media. Because that's how a lot of people got in trouble too. Yeah, yeah. So no one really thought anything was going to happen because, first of all, when you have something that big, usually the politicians like, you know what, we're not going to rest like thousands of people. Like, fine. we'll let it go. Maybe we'll arrest somebody who did something really horrific, you know, maybe 10

or 20 people, but, you know, we're not going to arrest everybody. And that's what I felt also after the whole summer of riots, because, yeah, they arrested some people, but the vast majority were not arrested. People who are on YouTube videos, they're being shared all over the place. We were looting sneakers from stores and looting other things. None of those people got arrested or into trouble. So I was like, okay, they didn't get into trouble.

We're not going to get into trouble either. So I wasn't going to advertise that I was there because I worked for a newspaper and I didn't think my bosses maybe would be so happy. So I didn't tell them. I didn't advertise it. I didn't put it on social media, but I didn't think anything

was going to happen to me. I didn't think I was videotaped either. Nowadays, everyone lost to video tape everything on their cell phones. So if people weren't so self-centered and have to videotape everything on the cell phones, I wouldn't be on video.

But I was on video because there were no government cameras on the outside of the Capitol. So I would not have been arrested eventually, if not for someone's cell phone. But anyways, I didn't think anything was going to happen. I didn't think anyone even knew I was there

besides my mother and a few other people. Yeah. But very quickly thereafter. And I didn't think Republicans would do what they did. They threw us under the bus completely, including Trump, by the way. And I love the man for many reasons. But he also, the next night, or two nights later, I think the next night, he got on television and said what they did on January 6 was a heinous crime. Okay, so if you have no one on your side, meaning, had the Republicans protected us? I think we would have been okay. They could have said, look, we don't agree with it, but we're not, you know, these people were just reacting to your crime. You committed the first crime, the crime of either stealing an election or certified. an election that a third of the country saw was questionable. You can't do that. When a third of the country has questions, you owe them answers. So I think they committed a crime, either a real crime or a metaphoric crime, a moral crime. So the Republicans should have said, you committed

the crime. Our people just reacted to your crime. But they didn't say that. Not only the politicians, even the conservative influencers, everybody. I mean, except like Mark Stein, I don't know who he is. He's a conservative columnist. He was like one of the only ones who said, he thought what we did was silly, but he said, I've no moral problem with what we, what you guys did. Almost every other conservative person, the top ones,

Matt Walsh, Tucker Carlson, all of them, Sean Hannity, every single one of them said what happened today was an embarrassment and terrible.

We're all against it. Don Jr. said it was terrible. I don't think Trump, senior, was against it at first because he didn't say anything for several hours. And even when he said something, he's like, I love you guys,

please go home. I think people scared him that he's going to go to prison. So the next night he called it a heinous crime. Whatever it was. When they started turning on us, and Trump, I think,

said to his justice department, you can do whatever you want, then I started seeing it as a problem and then I was going to Brooklyn two or three days later I saw on the side of the West Side Highway huge billboard for the FBI if you know anyone who was in the capital on January 6th please call us and let us know

mind you again the whole summer of riots no FBI billboard on the West Side Highway January 6th billboard so that's when I knew okay I really have to not speak about it at all and try to lay low and I didn't think anything was going to happen to me I really didn't because I didn't think anyone knew I was there also because I worked for the media

even though I wasn't there as a media person, but because it did work for the media, I thought maybe they didn't want to touch me, you know, probably go after other people also. I had a friend who was a lawyer who also told me, the government always has

prosecutorial discretion. They never arrest everybody. You'll be okay. Don't worry about it. Just don't write any op-eds against FBI. But otherwise you'll be okay. But then in April, or it was March or April,

a reporter for Politicoe emailed me, saying, I understand you were in the Capitol on January 6. Would you like to comment? What did your mom think, or what was the conversation with her like when she picked you up

because she obviously saw everything on the news unfolding and she knew her son was there, so was there any conversation? Right, so I'm just let me briefly said my father passed away 20 years ago, so that's why you can refer to my mother, not my father. My mother's very conservative herself also. And even now when she introduces me to people, she'll ask them first question, it's too upfront for me even, but it's my

mother, I'm not going to say anything, you know, it gives her happiness. She'll say to the person, do you like Trump? If the person says yes, She immediately tells the person I was in the capital on January 6 and I was arrested I was in prison she tells them right away I don't tell people right away

she tells them right away I think she's proud of me in the sense that she's proud of me that I did something for idealistic reasons she knows I didn't do it because I wanted to evangelize she knows I did it for you know idealistic reasons

so I think she's proud of that I'm not so sure she agrees with me going to the capital per se but she yeah but she's not upset of me now there's been reports lately I think it just recently came out that they were saying

that there was a bunch of law enforcement in the crowd during the January 6th riots? What do you think about that? I did read the same reports as you did, and people are interpreting it differently in different ways, you know, whether they were they plans or were they just there to try to crowd control? I don't care a lot about that, to be honest, because I don't care. I mean, people, there are people on my side of say, oh, we were all set up, but I don't have any problems about what we did, even if we weren't set up. Supposed we weren't set up.

And there were no FBI agents, and the whole thing was not as, And by the, I mean, it was either set up or stupidity, because there's no way in the world you should have allowed a crowd or that many people catch the capital and have so few law enforcement officials there. Because again, we were at that eastern entrance with like 10 or 15 guards. You're kidding me? A crowd of hundreds or even thousands, you have 10 or 15 guards? That's just irresponsible. So someone either just didn't do their job. It could be they just thought of themselves, oh, look, these are all Trump supporters.

Trump supporters follow the law. We don't have to worry about them doing anything. It's possible. So is either stupidity? or a setup, one or the other. But I don't mind if it was, I don't mind if we weren't set up. I don't think we did anything wrong. So I don't feel compelled to say it was a setup.

So let's say it wasn't a setup. What did we do already? We broke into the capital to scream to the politicians who we thought were doing a crime. It was a one-to-one ratio. I mean, again, the leftists, they were upset about someone who was killed in Minnesota and therefore they're riding in New York and shutting to hold New York down and causing between one or two billion dollars worth of damage across the country. What's the connection? Because you upset someone in Minnesota? For us, it was a

one-to-one ratio. We were upset at people at the Capitol. We went into the Capitol to scream at these people. So I had no moral problem with what we did. So I don't really care about, I mean, I don't mean, God forbid to, you know, be, I'm not trying to lash out at you. I'm just saying, it doesn't really concern me one way or the other, if we were set up or not, if there were law enforcement officials there or not. Yeah, no, it was just interesting because I was, I just interviewed a, he's a current federal agent now. I interviewed him yesterday. Oh, interesting. He was a former gang's detective, then moved into the feds. He worked

in Secret Service, and now he's with the Postal Inspector's Division. And I told him that I was interviewing someone from the January 6th thing, and he's like, oh, that's very interesting. I'm curious what his take is on the law enforcement reports. And he didn't give his side of it, whether he didn't confirm

or deny or whatever. He was curious about it. So I think the audience would be curious about that perspective, too. Yeah, no, so again, to me, just not my beef, as you would say, if anything, I think, you know, I'm thinking of writing a book on this topic. I might not only, because I don't think people really care about January 6 anymore

and also kind of like, quote, quote, quote, unquote, so it's like, you know, if our side had not won, quote unquote, mean Trump's president now, so he's doing a lot of things that we want, people on the conservative side want to do. So I'm not sure anyone really cares about January 6 anymore, but if I do write the book, I'm actually thinking of calling you a January 6 a missed opportunity. Because let's say it was a setup. So what? You know, sometimes like you have an enemy who tries to trap you, but sometimes they do a bad job

of trapping you. So they're trying to lure you into an ambush. But let's say they don't have enough people to have the So they lowered you in, but they're stupid because maybe you have so many people that you now are in the castle and you now could do what you want to do. And they didn't realize you had so many numbers. You took advantage of their setup in a way. So as far as I'm concerned, like, so what if it was a setup? We could have taken advantage of that setup because we had enough people. And it was like to me it was a misopportunity.

We actually could have had enough people in the capital. We could have set off a national crisis. We could have had a protest in Congress for two or three hours with everyone refusing to leave and no known what to do next. So I don't even careful with a setup. I think we should have taken advantage of the setup if it was a setup. So that's the way I feel. Tell us about your very first encounter with the FBI. It was 6 o'clock in the morning, as you probably know from interviewing your guest.

And I don't know if your own case was the same exact thing. 6 o'clock in the morning, bang, bang, bang, FBI open up. And, you know, I've never heard a louder sound in my life. But see, it wasn't completely unexpected because this is, first of all, 26 months later. So I actually thought more or less that that's it, they're not going to arrest me. 26 months later, by the way, they were arresting people, I think even, a week or two before Trump was inaugurated. So they were arresting people all the way till the very end.

But anyways, but then around a month or two before I was arrested, I read a story, I think it was on Breitbart, that a judge had told two January 6 lawyers, I'm retiring because the Justice Department just informed me as there's going to be a thousand new January 6 cases, and I'm not interested in dealing with January 6 cases the rest of my life. So I'm just going to retire now. This is what the news story said.

I thought to myself, okay, if there's a thousand more people being arrested, I'm very likely to be among the next 1,000. So I didn't tell anybody, but I was like, you know, at this point, probably I'm going to be arrested. Also, I got a phone call or two. I don't know if you had any experience with people you've interviewed or you had experience personally. I got a few phone calls where the person just hung up right away. So I don't know if that was the FBI kind of trying to confirm that I was in my apartment. Because in my FBI statement when I was arrested, it said to make sure that I was who I am,

they actually staked my apartment out. They had an FBI car. They waited until I left my apartment and they called me to see if I would answer my cell phone. And then when they saw me answer the cell phone and they knew, okay, this account that says Elliot Resnick is associated with this person, Elliot Resnick.

So I think the day before I was arrested, I got a phone call and nobody on the other end of the line. So I'm thinking to myself is the FBI trying to make sure that they know I'm home. So I don't know, maybe yes, maybe not. Whatever was, six o'clock the morning, very, very, very loud bangs. I quickly put on a pair of pants.

I knew why they were there I didn't even ask them but you know but there's no other reason they could have been there I opened the door and you know these are FBI agents so even though I thought I did nothing wrong you know you don't mess with FBI so I opened the door

put my hands up and then the door slams in their face I'm like don't you know doors closed if you don't keep them open so I'm like okay I said I'm going to open the door again very slowly they said yeah open it very slowly okay this time I opened it

made sure they, you know, then I put my hands up. They took me outside into the hallway. They turned me around. And I'm thinking, like, the door's going to close again. And I even said to them, the door's going to close again. Sure enough, it slams in their face the second time. Now they're locked out of the apartment. I don't know if they do this for a living.

Anyways, that was my, if that's when they arrested me. And they, you know, they brought me down to, I think we got back inside the apartment. The super had a key. He opened it. It's interesting. I don't know what they were like with you. They were very respectful in a weird way. After this very, very, very loud banging, after they immediately put handcuffs on me.

But, like, you know, my yarmulka had fallen off. You know, when I wear as an Orthodox Jew. I said, you know, it fell off. They're like, could we touch it? I said, yeah, of course you could touch it. And then later on, they got me another religious garment that I wore. Could we touch it? When I got to the car, Mr. Resnick, you have enough room for your knees.

Mr. Resnick, is there on your radio station you'd like for us to put on for you? Are you comfortable, Mr. Resnick? Like, it was bizarre to me, how nice they were being. And I thought maybe they were trying to set me up or something. Like, butter me up me. I'll talk later. it was like one woman who was like being super nice to me I think like you know like in the movies

like you have like some you know Russian spy who's like a very beautiful blonde trying to be nice to the guy so he's you know so that he spills his secrets but then when I got down to the station like you know and I knew I wasn't going to talk because like you know that's like number one thing you don't talk so they eventually they asked me like oh

we know about a lot that happened that day we have many people's stories about what you did that day the only story we don't have is your story and we'd love to hear your story so I think for myself okay here comes the trap but no, immediately she says to me but if you don't want to talk, just sign over here and you don't have to talk.

So like, I don't know. So it wasn't the trap, obviously, because they offered that I don't have to talk right away. But, you know, I was there for like 10 or 11 hours down in the station until you get in front of a judge and the whole thing and whatever. Then I was back home that night. And then, you know, the whole process.

And I'm sure many people listening to this podcast probably know, but I think people on the outside don't know, which is one of many reasons problems that I have with the justice system. Is that like, it's not just the, the jail time you eventually get or the prison time you eventually get, it's the waiting period from when you're arrested till you get to prison. And that can easily be a year, two years, or three years, a very long period. For me, it was around a year and a half. And that's just you're living in limbo because often you lose your job. You can't really look for another job because you can't tell

employer, I'd love to work for you, but I might go to jail in a year from now. They're not interested in hiring someone like that. So your life is on hold, and you don't know what's coming next while I be in prison. I didn't know. When I first was arrested, people like me, I looked up where I'd been in prison for either half year to two and a half years, people who had been charged with similar crimes to me. So I'm thinking I'll be either in prison for half year or two and half years. You don't know. You know, and there's a big difference between a half year and two and half years. And it's just, it's really annoying. And then things get delayed. Oh, we're going to have in December, now it's been delayed till February. It's been late again. Someone has a schedule

in conflict. It's been delayed again. It's like, it's just no fun. That waiting period is no fun. And I, by the time I went to Danbury and I went on election day, November 5th. I went in on election day and got out on inauguration day because he pardoned me. I was so ready to go to prison by the time I got to prison. The last like two or three months, I'm like, what am I doing here already? I just let me just get it over with it already. Like she's you waiting, doing nothing. It's like what's the point? Yeah, I found on the topic of law enforcement, they were very friendly with me, at least the federal officials. Correctional officers hit or miss. Local police hit or miss. I found them more rude and nasty than most. But the actual federal

agents like the IRS, postal inspectors, FBI, very nice and pleasant. Especially after they make the arrest and they're because their safety is a priority, they're making sure everything is okay. Then it's good. You know, they're just normal people. They're very calm because I think with them they don't have necessarily a personal vendetta, whereas like maybe a local cop that started the investigation might have more of a vendetta, but the federal agents in my case were very kind and caring.

Yeah, interesting. But it's interesting. That lady who was so nice to me, super nice. I even thanked her. I was in a terrible mood that day, just for other reasons. I was in a terrible mood. Maybe if I had been in a better mood,

I would have been a little bit more defiant. Not, you know, not to disobey any orders, but I don't think I would have been. But I was in terrible mood. So I was a little more friendly than I probably should have been. That lady who was being so friendly to me, so I thanked her actually at the end of the day for being so nice.

She was the one who actually was, who wrote up the whole report on me. She was the one who, she was like the lead investigator on my case. And I asked her, why are you being so nice to me. She's like, I try to treat everybody as if he were my brother. So I'm thinking, so I'm your brother, but yet you just spent weeks at least investigating me and writing up this whole 20-page report on me. I don't know. I can't quite figure it out, but I mean, she was very nice and the others were very nice.

And maybe it's for a reason you said, like they're doing their job. Although, I don't know. It's like, there does come a point that if you're doing a job and you really think you're doing something wrong, maybe you shouldn't be doing it. And maybe that's not, you know, I don't know where to draw the red line. And maybe, you know, maybe the red line should only be drawn at, like, at murder or something. like people say about the Nazis. Like you should have disobeyed orders. Maybe the red line is only in extreme cases.

I don't know. But I think at certain point, there has to be some, if you really think you're doing something wrong and you're spending weeks and weeks and weeks, investigating somebody and you really think the person's being railroaded, I don't know. Maybe speak up to your boss or something. I don't know.

I'm not sure if I have a strong opinion on that. I don't know if you do. How did your friends in the public treat you specifically after your arrest and up until, you know, sentencing? So I was very lucky. Most Orthodox Jews are Republican. I know most liberal Jews are famously Democrats. but most Orthodox Jews, most traditional Jews, are Republican, and that's for many reasons.

I mean, on social issues, you almost have to be a Republican because transgender or just homosexual marriage, these are things are just like if you believe in traditional Jews in or Christianity or Islam, any traditional religion, really, it's very hard to be a Democrat on social issues. But even on other issues, like, you know, let's say, just even right and wrong, truth and, you know, falsehood, these are values that are more Republicans are more comfortable with and traditional Jews are more comfortable with. On the left, you have people who are more relativistic. I don't know. Who are you to judge? Your truth, my truth. So traditionally speaking, Republicans, sorry, Orthodox Jews, vote, like, you know, 80%. I looked recently

in Orthodox sections of Brooklyn. It was like 80 to 90% for Trump. So I was very lucky in that the people that I usually associate with, not everybody, I had a neighbor who's an Orthodox Jew who hates Trump with a passion. But even he was very nice, actually, which was interesting. He was very, very nice to me. He even visited me in prison. I thought it was extremely nice of him. but most Orthodox Jews are pro-Trump or a Republican, so most of them had no problem with what I did. So I was very lucky. I was very lucky for several reasons.

And I always say this, four reasons I think I was very lucky. Number one, I was only in prison for two and a half months, and you know as well as I, and you were in the shoe, which is not a fun experience at all. But when you go to prison and they ask you how long are you there for, and I had to say four months, that was my sentence, and then how long are you there for? Five years, ten years.

You're like, oh, my gosh, you feel embarrassed. I think I mentioned that before. I apologize. The second reason I was in Danbury, which is one of the best prisons in the country. It's low security, so you have no stabbings. You know, they give prisoners there, razors to shave with in the morning. I mean, I don't use a razor because I'm not allowed to go into Jewish law. But, I mean, in high security prison, you give somebody a razor, he's going to use it to stab his friends.

No stabbing's there. So you also want no gangs there. No black gangs, Hispanic gangs, you know, none of that, none of these things like in TV where they rape you in the shower type of things. Like, none of that type of thing. So, also, reason number two, I'm lucky. Reason number three I'm lucky is because I had a community that supported me, basically. Usually most people get arrested. You kind of like embarrassed.

You go back home to your community. You don't really want to tell them if you find out. You don't really want to face them. I was in prison for a crime that I personally was more or less proud of. And most people around me also were either proud of or at least were okay with. So there was no embarrassment. And the fourth reason is, it's interesting. I was watching that interview you did with this judge from Colorado.

And he said he doesn't know how anybody could do prison without a family. I don't know how anybody could do prison with a family Because I think for most people who are married It's crushing guilt that you're abandoning your wife and your children They're growing up without you You can't be there for them You can't be there for your wife It must feel awful inside

I'm not married, I don't have a family Now that's not a good thing I should be married, should have a family I'm looking for that, God willing But I don't So I had none that guilt on my head also I could go into prison with a clean conscience And have peace of mind

So for those four reasons I am lucky Really What was your attorney saying to you up and leading up till sentencing was he saying, oh, don't worry about this. It's just probation or, you know, this is going to go away. What's he telling you? No, he told me pretty quickly, more or less what I was,

you know, what I was facing. And I've done my own research also, because there was, for a long time, you could just Google January 6 cases and see a list of all the cases of people who had been arrested and what they've been sentenced to. So I immediately saw where people who had been arrested for similar crimes, quote unquote, that I'd been arrested for, what they had gotten. So I knew

more or less what I was getting. He knew more or less what I was getting. He said, though, the longer we wait. He said my case is like wine. The longer it ages, the better it is. So he was telling me, and also there was a law that came to effect in November of 24, May, September, October

of 24, that pushed you down like a notch or two in the sentencing guidelines. If you had been arrested for a non-violent crime, you got a few points off or something. So he told me if we get sentenced after this thing takes into effect, you'll be a little bit better

off. So he knew what I was facing. I you what I was facing. He was a very nice lawyer. I got a federal defender. I was very lucky. Because I already had lost my job at the Jewish press, I had no income coming in, so I qualified for a federal defender. He was a Democrat. He told me off the bat, I think Biden won. I don't think the election was stolen. But he was just like a traditional classical lawyer. He didn't really care. He's like, I'm your lawyer. I'm here to defend you. Which was also a blessing, because I had read some stories of January 6 cases. They got Democratic lawyers who couldn't stand Trump, who, and, you know, maybe those were the minority cases. Those were the cases

that actually got on Breitbart or other conservative websites. So I was scared, you know, if I have this lawyer, he's not going to be on my side. But he just was a classical lawyer. He was like, I defend people. That's my job. And I don't agree, you know, with what you did or whatever it is, but I'm defending you. So he was very nice. Always emailed me back whenever I called, whenever I emailed, always had time for me.

So I was very lucky. And, yeah, I knew what I was facing. Again, the only thing was I thought I was going to go to prison roughly like a year after I was arrested. So that was arrested. So that was no fun. If there was an option on the day they arrested you to just, you know, take, say, the four months, five months, six months, right that day, would you have taken it rather than wait through this whole legal process? That's almost a two years long. Yeah, so part of me wanted to do that. They announced, I don't know how it is in every single case. In my case, they announced at my initial hearing from the judge. The day I was arrested. Apparently, there is an option if you plead guilty that day and both lawyers are okay with it and the judge approves it, I think you get sentenced right away also.

So my lawyer didn't even ask me. He's like, no, no, no, we waived that option. And I asked him afterwards, like, I don't know, maybe we shouldn't have waived that option. But he said to me, he said, look, it's not wise. And he said it's better for the case, because January 6th's were a little bit political. He said, the longer you are away from January 6th, the less the Justice Department is going to want to make an example of you. I was already arrested 26 months afterwards. March of 23, I was arrested.

It happened January 21, January 6th. He's like, the longer we wait, the better it is. He said, also this law is coming to effect later on. We'll be able to get you down a notch or two. He said, he just didn't think it was wise. He wasn't even sure the prosecutor would have agreed. But yeah, a part of me was like, you know, let's just get this over with. I mean, in your case, I worked out for the best because you didn't even have to serve your whole sentence.

Yeah, although I served two and a half months. And with the first step, act, I would have only served like three months and a week or something. So it wouldn't have been that bad. But yeah, I guess it did work out. It gives me a better story to tell that I was pardoned by Donald Trump. After sentencing, how much time did you have? to self-surrender. Was it three months? No.

It wasn't so long, but it was right before the Jewish holidays, and I definitely preferred spending the Jewish holidays with my family rather than in prison. So I asked my lawyer, please at least ask for Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement, the Holy State in the Jewish calendar. I said, at least ask for after that. But also there's another holiday afterwards called Sukkot, Sukkis. I said, preferably even after that. So he told the judge, could we wait until after the Jewish holidays?

The judge said, no problem. It was like three or four weeks, I think. were you researching prison at all in between that time of having to self-surrender? Are you watching prison movies, TV shows? What are you doing? Not really. I didn't want to really... I'm not sure. I don't know if I want to scare myself. Some people if you know too much, it's not good. I had one person who started telling me, so in a certain way I didn't want to know too much. Like, I'll go in there, lay low, take it as it comes, don't have too many expectations, either for good or for bad. That was my kind of my plan. Some people start to start to know. telling me things I didn't even want to know about. Like one rabbi who was trying to help me. He's like, because he's like visits prisoners,

he tries to help them out. He's like, oh, don't tell anybody how long you're in prison for because they'll be very jealous of you. If they ask you, just kind of like, tell a lie. And I hate telling lies. I'm like, no, I don't want to tell a lie, but I didn't say it to him. And if you feel uncomfortable and people, if you feel threatened with me, people, just say to the guards, I feel threatened and I want to go to the shoe.

I'm like, so he scared me. I mean, no one was scaring me until I spoke to him. So I just, I didn't want to know too much. And yeah, I went to prison kind of like trying not to know too much. Everyone has that first day of prison story that, you know, they're never going to forget about for the rest of their life. What was your first day in federal prison like? I guess a few stories, some more interesting than others. The first, like you mentioned all the way at the beginning, but I think that I knew about going in that they were going to strip me.

I knew about that going in. Not pleasant, but whatever, if you know what to expect. And, again, thankfully, you know, if you have a guard who's a sick or it might be a problem. This guard seemed a little bit uncomfortable with the whole process. So that's a blessing. If he's, if he's uncomfortable, then you could handle it much better. He did it very quickly. He's like, you know, he looked very quickly because you have to make sure you're not hiding anything.

And that was it. It's putting your clothes back on. Then I got to my unit and some black guy says to me, what are you? I'm saying like, what are you, what am I? He's like, are you black, Hispanic, Jewish? I'm like, I'm certainly not black. I'm like, no, I'm Jewish. He's like, oh, anyways, because you know the way it goes.

They give you a little slip where you're going to sleep. but then, like, you know, the bunks really are really based on kind of like your community, quote, unquote. So there was like one or two Jews in my unit, and like he had been warned that I was coming to prison. So he was ready for me. It was an open bunk bed for me. So I was, and he was very nice guy, a Jewish guy, and he was telling me different things. And, you know, we're bunkies now. We share bunk beds.

And so he starts, why are you in prison? So he's telling me that he was, and this is one of the things I did not know about prison at all until I got to prison. And it bothers me tremendously. So he was in S.O., which, you know, it stands for sex offender. And half of Danbury apparently are sex offenders. And going into prison, I thought a sex offender is somebody who takes a five-year-old kid to a basement and rapes him. And that's obviously horrific.

And, like, you know, if someone like that got the death penalty, I wouldn't really object. But two-thirds of three-quarters, I think, of sex offenders in prison never touched anybody. A lot of them, the majority of them, I believe, just like touched, clicked on a photo or video on the internet that they should not have clicked on. And so that's what my bunky had done. He was a regular guy, never been in trouble with the law his entire life, worked like for the airline industry for like 20, 30 years. And then COVID started. And he was one of these people who were like petrified of COVID.

So he locked himself in his apartment all day long. And so he'd go a little bit crazy, right? So he was on chat rooms all day long. So he was homosexual. So he was on male chat rooms. And eventually it's like some kid. But he didn't always be a kid. He was a 15 year old teenager.

But teenage just could look very, very adult like. A 15-year-old teenager, emailed him some photos of himself. That was like it. My buggy said, I'm not interested in my mind. I've never been interested in minors. That's not my thing. I'm not interested in it at all. Next thing he knows, some undercover FBI agent

asked him, oh, I heard you were in touch with so-and-so the other week. You have some photos that he sent to you? Could you forward them to me? He forwarded the photos. That's all he did. A few weeks later, a few days later, I think a few weeks later, he was arrested for, I think, distribution of pornography. He got like a seven-year sentence.

When he's out, he's going to be a sex offender's whole life. He's on registry now. I mean, there's no major, you know, big or even medium-sized company is going to hire him. who he's branded for life. It's like, you're a sex offender, but they're not all the same. A sex offender, someone who touches a five-year-old is not the same as somebody who looks at a 16-year-old.

And even that, you know, a lot of these laws, I think, were made in the 80s. To look at, you know, underage inappropriate pictures or videos, again, I'm not condoning any of it. It's obviously all immoral, all not right. But first of all, we don't live in Victorian England. There's plenty of things you can do in this country that are absolutely disgusting that no one will ever do anything to you for, right? You could cheat 10 times, destroy 10 marriages, make, you know, 30 kids' lives miserable, the rest of their lives

because you ruin their parents' marriage, and nothing will happen to you. Even though, by the way, adultery is still illegal officially in 15 states. It was illegal in New York until last year. No one's prosecuted it in like 50 years, but it's still illegal, but they'll never arrest you for that. But if you clicked on a photo on the internet, it's like years ago, if you're looking at, you know,

teenage porn, whatever it is, you have to like really go out of your way. Like, where would you find this stuff in the olden days? I have no idea, and I don't even want to know where you would find the stuff in the olden days. But today, it's like, it's like 10 seconds. I mean, I don't know. I don't have any experience, but thank God, but I would imagine from the moment of desire to the moment you actually see something, it's probably like 15, 20 seconds, I can't imagine that it's so hard to find

the stuff on the line. And you're sending people to prison for five years, 10 years, and it's like, over that, it's just like, and I was told in prison, someone told me that the government actually prefers to go after these people because go bring a six-year-old to the stand and have the jury believe the six-year-old that this guy touched me. It's like, you know, maybe yes, maybe not. It's very hard to prove a case that way. Internet's very easy to prove. You can just look at the computer, prove that he downloaded that video, boom, he's in prison. And these are under the federal government, even though state governments would prosecute them much less.

But the federal government claims jurisdiction because they said it's interstate commerce, which of course it is not. It's not commerce. You know, the interstate commerce law was made so the Congress could regulate commerce. They didn't want to have tariffs between New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio. You can't have a functioning national economy if you do that. But for many years already, Congress has used this interstate commerce clause to prosecute all sorts of crimes. So they claim, well, that inappropriate photo bounced off different servers

in Atlanta and New York, and you're in California, so that's interstate commerce, quote, unquote. And so they arrest these people for years on end, and then they scare them. You know, you could plead guilty or we'll send you a prison for even longer. And so you have tons of people in prison. And I did, again, first I just knew about my bunky. I felt bad because a wonderful guy. And I'm thinking he made one mistake. You're throwing him in prison for seven years. Then I started playing sports, and I started playing pickleball in prison. I never played pickleball before I got to prison. I never even heard of the store until I got to prison. And then as I'm playing

pickleball, these are all white guys. Slowly I learned almost every single person I'm playing pickleball with is a sex offender. And again, not sex offenders who touch anybody. They didn't touch anybody. They looked at stuff they shouldn't have looked at. And again, I'm not condoning it. I think it's all immoral and wrong. But you know, and if we lived like, you know, Victorian England, I would say

fine, by all means. But we don't live in Victorian England. You would let people do crazy immoral things in this country. And all of a sudden you're throwing the book at them, you know, warn them, give them a warning or give them a short prison sentence for the first time. Most people, as you know, once you're in prison, you kind of like to vouch yourself, I'll never do this again. So most these people, if they're looking at a 16 or 17 year old, if you have to arrest them, arrest them, give them a few months in jail, they won't ever do it again. They won't.

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Deepop, where Taste recognizes Taste. But you still, instead they get thrown to prison for years on end, I don't think it's right. What I've learned with a lot of the sex offenders, though, in these lows, they do downplay what their charges are. Like, they always stuck me in the cell with sex offenders because I was young and white. and what these sex offender stories were, like they would say exactly how you're describing it. Oh, I just accidentally stumbled across it, and I clicked on it, and I got five years.

But in some of the, at least in my experience, some of those cases, that wasn't the case, and they were deliberately searching for it, or there was more to it than what they were saying on the onset. And when I was in Fort Dix, at the low security prison, they actually did, the FBI had an undercover agent as an inmate or like an informant. And they had, they were selling, the sex offenders were selling child pornography on a contraband

iPad in the prison. They busted them, arrested them. It was a whole sting. And each of those individuals already serving five or 10 years, got an additional 10, 15, 20 years. So there is those cases too, you know. Yeah, that's crazy. And I'll admit you, I have a little bit gullible. I tend to believe people. A lot of times in prison, if they're saying that, it's not necessarily true, you know. So that's just, just so the audience is aware. Yeah, no, I'm sure you're right. But even if you're deliberately searching for it, again, I think it's a huge difference

between deliberately searching for a nine-year-old and deliberately searching for a 17-year-old. They're not the same in my book. They're just not. One, you're a super sick old. Another one, you just have desires you shouldn't have, but these are not, you know, anyways, I don't think they're the same.

And, yeah, I just think some of them get a little harsher sentences that they probably deserve. But did people give you a hard time because he was your cellmate and because you were kind of associating with other sex offenders? Well, I didn't know that they were sex offenders because although I guess you'd know

kind of know when we go to the Chow Hall. But I was the Jewish table was all the way in the corners. I didn't always kind of see all the other tables so much. We were next to the New Jersey table than like the black table. But so, no, I mean, I played pickleball with them. And I didn't know that they were sex offenders.

So like, and there were a lot of people play pickleball with kind of like, I think they were sort of popular. They weren't like bad people. They didn't have a creepy to them. One of them did, actually, but most of them did not have creepy looks to them. No one said anything to me. I mean, if people, you know, they asked one on their force at January 6th, even people who don't really agree with conservative politics. Like, there's a streak of

anti-government, you know, the anti-government streak in prison. So a lot of people kind of thought it was kind of neat that I did what I did. So they would say, what you're here for? Are you sex offender? I was saying, no, I'm January 6. Like, oh, January 6, that's cool. So it's like, the conversation ended very quickly, you know? How did you feel about the food? Did you sign up for the Jewish meals? What did you do? Yes, I had to have the kosher meals. And And yeah, I mean, to me, they're fine. I mean, I'm kind of a picky eater in general, but they were fine. I had no problem.

There was, actually, there were some Jews who were on the non-cochure meal. One of them actually was on the kosher menu, and then he switched to the non-coacher menu because he thought the non-coacher menu was tasted better. So in case anyone's jealous, apparently the kosher food is not better in Danbury, but they have kosher food. And yeah, it was better than I expected. I was a little bit worried because I am a little bit of picky eater. But between the meals that I liked and between, you know, one of those nice things about

prison, which you probably didn't experience as much because you were in the shoe, is that people share a lot. It's kind of like being in high school again, you know, or camp. It's like other people knew that I didn't like some of the food. So it's like, oh, I'll give you my meal. And they give me their extra bread or extra apple. Like, they kind of like wanted to help me out. So like, you know, every meal, no matter what, I had two pieces of bread and an apple.

And often I had like four pieces of bread and two apples because that's because people just gave me their stuff. And I gave them my main course. Between the meals and people sharing and the commissary, there was enough food. I mean, I lost some way, but there was enough food. I was okay. Now, the Jewish community and federal prison is known for having a lot of connections and access to things. Did you get to experience any of that? So you mentioned to this to me before I got on air.

I was not aware they had connections when I was in Danbury. Maybe if I had been there longer, I would have known that. I mean, the one nice thing is that when I got to prison, they kind of gave me a care package. So immediately I got slippers to the shower and the deodorant and different things that you normally have to wait a few days for until your money comes through from your family and all that. So that was very nice. Other than that, I didn't get anything from the Jewish community. I was telling you that my cellmate in Dambury at the shoe ran the rabbi smuggling ring where they used the rabbi.

His parents were friends with the rabbi on the free world, and they would deliver kosher food that was home-cooked and everything to the rabbi, and the rabbi was smuggling it in. And I guess in the food, too, that's why it became a big ordeal, was there were cell phones sometimes. There was other items other than food, no weapons or anything. But what kind of rabbi was that? I don't know, but he lost his job. Yeah, I'd imagine.

It was a whole thing. See, the food I would have forgiven him because he's trying to be nice, but the cell phones now. Yeah, well, apparently in his defense, this was just all, you know, things that we'd hear through the grapevine. He had no idea that there was actual items in the food. But yeah, they were bringing in really good, you know, kosher food. So I guess you didn't get to take part in any of that in Danbury. No, I didn't get any of that. There was once that we had like a mini celebration.

If you finish like a major Jewish book, traditional religious book, we have something called a Siam, which kind of is like a mini celebration. We're having a nice meal. So there was someone in prison who had finished a certain religious text. He wanted to make a little mini celebration. So there was at least two Jews who worked in the kitchen. So to make kosher food is not so simple, but they actually, they koshered the oven. They made the oven kosher because they were there all day in the kitchen. So they were able to kind of take control of the oven for an hour or two. And they were able to make fresh kosher bread. like the one time

that, you know, we got something out of some kosher people working in the kitchen. And that was the first Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday that you missed ever. Yes. Did they treat you right during that holiday? How did that work? That holiday went well. Apparently not every holiday they treat you as well as they should.

It depends. How long in advance you're prepared for? Look, at this point, it's 2025. It's not if it was like 1955. I think by now the federal government knows all the religions, everything that's required or not required. So they gave us the minores every night. you know, and you know, in theory they could just say like one manure for everybody, which would have, I guess, been okay according to Jewish law, but like most Jewish homes have

everyone has a menorah. You know, those are like the eight candelabra type thing. And so everyone had a menorah, anyone who won and got a menorah. So, you know, sometimes people have jelly donuts on Hanukkah. We couldn't, that was like the one thing. We were going to get jelly donuts. We were not able to get jelly donuts on Hanukkah. But that's okay.

It's not a real law. It's kind of like a slight sort of minor customer or something. That's okay. Now, when you saw Trump got elected, did you know that you were going to get out? on the day he got torn in? Or is that just speculation? Yeah, there was a lot of speculation. The speculation was he was going to immediately pardon everyone who wasn't violent.

Now, I didn't do anything violent per se, the way you and I would use the word violent. But in legal terms, what's violent in legal terms, not necessarily violent in cloakial terms. So I wasn't sure if holding a policeman's hand for two and a half seconds, his wrist qualified as violent. I didn't know how that would be classified. So I wasn't sure if he was going to be pardoned on January 6 or not. sorry on January 20th. I figured, though, worst comes to worse.

I got a four-month sentence. With First Step Act credits, I had like two or three weeks knocked off my sentence. So worse comes to worst, I would have had another two or three weeks in jail. I think three more weeks in jail. So I wasn't really so concerned.

I just kind of like, I thought it would be pretty neat to have the story. I was part of my president Trump. But I wasn't banking on it. Other people were like, oh, you're going to get out today. You're going to get out today.

I was like, we'll see. We'll see. I didn't want to get my hopes up or anything. And yeah, sure enough. Someone's like, no you're definitely getting out tonight. It was like it was 8 o'clock. I'm like, no, we'll see. Like, not we'll see. I just saw it on the news. They said everyone's been either pardoned or commuted. I was like, okay, if everyone's been pardoned or commuted, I belong to everybody.

How did you find out that you were getting pardoned? People were watching the news. I was in the gym playing, I think, soccer or something or maybe pickleball. But like from the actual guards, I know you were just saying about like the people. Oh, so yeah, so that was on TV. So then I knew more or less it was getting out. I didn't know when because it could have been that day. It could be next week because then, you know, the BOP, they'd always do everything right away. a guard, a CEO came over to me, correctional officer, came over to me like around 10, 10.30 saying, if we release you tonight,

you have someone to take you home. I was like, well, if you tell me when, then yeah, but if not. They're like, well, call your mother, tell her to be on standby, not to go to sleep. Fine, I call my mother. We'll know within, like, the hour or so. We'll have, like, a list from Washington.

We don't have the list yet. Like an hour and a half passes, they don't tell me anything. I asked the guard, no, we don't know anything yet from Washington. I call my mother. I said, do not let me out tonight. You could go to sleep. It's not happening.

But then around 1 o'clock they come to my bed and said, Resnick, I said, yeah. They said, go to R&D, which is release and delivery. I said, with my stuff, they said, yeah, with your stuff. So, okay, then I knew I was going. Wait, they actually booted you that night. I'm actually shocked knowing the BOP, and they didn't just, they weren't playing around. But normally it's like the next morning, or I've heard a lot of cases when, even when a court gets, you know, I had these two brothers that I interviewed, they got a pardon. from Trump. They had life in prison. They didn't get out until the next day after the

pardon. So this is interesting. Yeah, there were a few people who got out a few days later. I think the DC jail didn't let out or prison didn't let people out right away. But yeah, I don't know how it worked out. But yeah, 1.30 in the morning, I was let out in 3-degree weather in a T-shirt because, you know, you can't keep your prison coat. And I'll own anything. I mean, it wasn't there long enough. I had not bought a sweatshirt or something. I only owned that one great T-shirt I bought from commissary. So they told me to take off my coat. I went out in three-degree weather. They didn't let me even call my mother, which was bizarre. It's like,

so they just said go? That's it? More or less. I mean, where'd you go? I mean, there were five January 6ers in prison. We all got let out together. Oh, you were all in Denver. Yeah, five of us were. I mean, the people think were all over the place. Yeah, but like those five individuals are in. Yeah, one person was, it's a bizarre story. I don't mean to make fun of him, but

just it's an interesting story. And I'm not trying to make fun of him. We're sitting there like waiting this process are our paperwork. And I'm like, so what's your story with January 6th story? Because I never really met him. I met two of the others several times. not this one. He's like, well, I'm not even political. I'm like, you're not political and you're arrested for January 6. How does that work? He's like, well, I don't know. I hadn't been to Washington, D.C. in my life, and I was touring with my father, and we heard there was a rally going on. So, like, okay, it's pretty cool to go to a rally. And we're like, we're filming with our photos. And we're kind of like filming. And all of a sudden, like, some police officer, like,

knocks the phone off my, out of my hand. And, no, sorry. I think, sorry, his phone dropped. So I went to pick up my phone. And also, I hear, I feel like some police man hitting me, like, on the back. Like, I'm not going to take that from anybody. So I got up and I pushed a policeman back. So he was arrested for January 6th, even though he didn't care that Trump won the election. Like, okay, that's interesting to me. Anyways, but one of the guys there told me, he's like, it was actually the person who actually was arrested for, you know, Brian Sidnick's death, quote, unquote.

He said, my father was picking me up. You could call your mother from my father's cell phone. And if he doesn't answer, she's sleeping, you just, you'll stay over my house the night. So I just didn't want to ask the COs anything. Because I even said, what's now? I thought, like, what's now me? You'll let me call somebody. Like, no, nothing now.

nothing, you're just yours getting out. So I don't want to ask them, just whatever, you're going out. So I got out, and this guy's father picked us up. He was a Lebanese Christian, which, and he, you know, it was pitch dark for the most part. All of a sudden in the parking lot of here, Chhabibi, which is an Arabic greeting or Jewish greeting, but I think he's Arabic originally. I think this guy's Christian, because I see him cross himself at meals. I'm like, this guy's Christian, I'm hearing Chhabi B, what's going on? But he was a Christian Arab from Lebanon.

So he escaped Lebanon in the 1970s when the whole country was falling apart. And anyway, so he gave us a ride, five January 6ers and a teeny car. Thank God some of the January 6ers were dropped off at a hotel nearby. And they had people picking them up from Ohio and Maryland. And then us two went to this guy's house in New Jersey. And my mother was, whatever, she was dead tired. And she always had fallen asleep and got to an accident just a few days before. So I was like, Ma, just go to sleep.

And my brother ordered me in Uber. And anyways, yeah. What did it mean to be pardoned? Is it off your record completely now? thought it was, but apparently it's not. I googled it. Apparently very few federal crimes are expunged. Apparently some drug crimes you could apply and sometimes the federal government will expunge your record completely. So I'm no longer a convicted felon, but I am, my record is still there. So FBI looks me up. He'll say that I was convicted and then pardon.

But you can own a gun. I can own a gun. I could vote. I could just serve on the jury and all that. But I said a jury dude actually like two or three weeks after I got out actually. Yeah, I actually got, for the state, I got requested for jury duty last year. And I didn't think I'd ever be accessible. Obviously, I got, like, kicked off. Like, they didn't select me. But I was still requested to go to jury duty. And you still have to serve in the Connecticut state? Yes, it doesn't. Yeah, I don't think a felony disqualifies you. Or I've never gotten a federal request. But at least in the state, they requested. Interesting. But yeah, that's interesting about the part in that it's still on your record, but you get your rights back at least. least. Not that you look like the type of person that's going owning guns, but... The only time in my life that I thought of owning a gun was during the riots. No, because you read stories about people calling 911, the police not showing up. I'm like, okay, if they haven't a riot in my building, I don't want to go down, at least taking someone with me. That was the only time in my life I wanted to own a gun. Otherwise, yeah,

now I'm not usually a gun person. And but yeah, like when I served on jury, it says, were you ever convicted of a crime? And I, yeah, I do have to write yes if I want to answer, you know. Do you feel like the January 6th situation is behind you now, or do you think it's effective your life moving forward or how do you feel about that? I don't know for the effect of my life very much. I mean, look, I'm sort of like crossworlded in my life right now because I lost my job for January 6 and then my whole prison and getting arrested. And so I'm kind of in between things.

I'm not really sure where I'm heading. Depends where I go. I guess I'll see if it holds me back or not. I mean, again, my community doesn't hold me back. I got a PhD in Jewish history a number of years ago, but years ago already decided it's not just the record. It's like if a university ghouls me and sees January. There's no way in the world. The university is going to hire somebody to be a professor with January 6 in his background, whether it's, you know, in my record or not, it's on Google. It's not going away from Google anytime soon. So, yeah. But I already kind of came to terms with that quite a long time ago. Now it would have been regardless of whether I'd been arrested or not because there were newspaper articles written about me. So I think that boat sailed already a while ago, regardless of my arrest. Do you think if Trump didn't get elected, you'd have a different view on it? Do you think it would be more haunting over you? Or?

Maybe more depressing. I think I've been more upset because I was upset for a while. More of the Republicans out of the Democrats for, I think, throwing us under the bus and not backing us up at all. Because at the end, we, again, we protested for a cause you guys believed in officially. So it's like, why are you throwing us under the bus? Like, you don't have to agree with us, but at least you could say, I can understand why you did it. We sort of support. You know, again, you were responding to a crime.

You didn't commit the first crime. I was more upset with the Republicans. Now that Trump won, he's doing a lot of things that I agree with and not as upset anymore, I guess. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So going back in time, would you do this all over again if the option presented itself? Yes, I probably would. I know it's weird to say.

Because at the moment, you know, going back to following politics, especially Israeli politics, because Israeli politics is actually much more intense than American politics. Maybe not now. But until Donald Trump came on the scene, Israeli politics was much more intense than American politics. Because it was existential. Jews were dying in the streets by suicide bombs. So it's like everyone cared a lot more.

in terms of life and death. So many articles I read over the years they would quote Edmund Burke, even though apparently he didn't say it, but everyone attributes to it to him that the only thing it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I read that line so many times

in different op-eds I read in related to Israeli politics, probably American politics made a little bit, but much more Israeli politics. So it's like you're telling me, after reading that quote many times, that when I'm standing outside of the Capitol and there's hundreds and hardures and hudders of us,

and we have an opportunity to go inside the Capitol and maybe make a difference and stop this what we think is a question about election for being certified. You're telling me I should say, no, I'm not going to do anything just going to sit here, do nothing. I couldn't have lived with myself

if that was going to be my reaction. My reaction, so that's why I did what I did. Now, again, at the end, it didn't help, I guess you could say. Although even after everything, I think it helped a little bit. I think it's good for politicians to know that you have a breaking point.

It just is, because they react based on what you do, what you don't do. It's good for Democrats to know Republicans have a breaking point. It's good for Republican politicians to know as their own voters have a breaking point. I just think that's good.

and so we establishes we have a breaking point. So even though we did nothing else what we wanted to accomplish, at least we accomplished that. But we didn't accomplish most of what we wanted to accomplish, granted. But nonetheless, in the moment, if I was in the moment again, I would do the same thing again, I guess. Yeah, I just maybe wouldn't put myself in the same situation again. Like if tomorrow there was going to be a rally,

you know, I would think probably 10 times, do I really want to go there and put myself in that situation? Probably not. You know, question, again, but it's all matter of stakes, you know. We have been in our history, Martin Luther King got arrested. If the stakes are high enough, the Boston Tea Party, they weren't playing ping pong, they were destroying property.

So if the stakes are high enough, but I hope never to live again in a period or a situation where the stakes are that high. I really don't. When I was fired, the owner of the Jewish press is very conservative. She was believed in Republican values, and she's like, I'm scared you're going to do it again. And I said to her, hopefully storming a capital is a once in a century event.

Hopefully it's not going to happen again where I would be in such a situation. I hope never to be in such a situation again. you know definitely well listen man I appreciate you coming on the show today man my pleasure thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it yeah I've been wanting to have someone from the January 6 situation come on the show so I'm glad we could finally make that happen and uh hear your side of the story and get this out there thank you and if I could just say one more thing quickly yeah of course there's one thing just bothers me several things about the prison system that I'm sure bother you

and bother your guess somebody who's about a student who's about to miss 20 minutes of recess has more of a chance to make his case than a person who's about to your lose 20 years of his life. And I think, I don't know how to fix that, but something has to be done about that. It should not be that way. Yeah. The prison system's corrupt. It's like you're going to lose 20 years of your life and you can't make your case because all these rules of civil procedure and all these things your lawyer are telling you, a prison should be allowed to make his case, you know, in front of a jury, say here's what happened. Here's why I think I should not get such a long sentence. Just let him appeal to the jury or to the judge. He can't, he can't do that

most of the time. It's like, I don't get it. I don't throw that out there because it's been spaceist and you can't like just share your story. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. And I think it should be more like you, you share your story and they believe you or don't believe you. And obviously, you need supporting facts and evidence to your story, but the way you're able to present it should be kind of storytelling in a way. I think so. I think so. I'm sorry, so I really want to say that just very quickly because it bothers me. Of course, man. Well, I appreciate you, man. Thank you. Thank you so much again. Awesome.