Trump's Trials - Not a peaceful protest: Part 2 of 2

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

In this NPR investigation, we look at how President Trump and his allies are rewriting history related to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. Every episode, we explore how President Trump is governing on his own terms. Today, we are bringing you an NPR investigation into how Trump and his allies are rewriting history related to the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Part one came out yesterday, and it's in your feeds now, and here's part two. This podcast includes explicit language, depictions of violence, and suicide. I'm Tom Dreisbach on our last episode. More, more, our civil war! More, more, our civil war! I was afraid that I might lose conscience and I was sore and be killed there. Hold the life! Hold the life! It was just not a scene that I had ever experienced in 20 years of inner city policing.

I was happy about it. You were happy about them seeing, like... Being afraid of people. And like, here's a common man, here we are. After Jason Riddle stormed the Capitol, chugged wine, and ran away. He eventually made his way back home to New Hampshire. But he did not exactly go into hiding.

A New Hampshire man who attended the protest in D.C. Wednesday and even joined the mob as it stormed the Capitol building is now speaking out. Riddle spoke out to a reporter for an NBC station in Boston. Why did you go in? I just I had to see it You don't regret it No

After doing that I was like okay I'm probably going to get arrested How long did it take when did you start I think they showed up two weeks later I was on a bender I drank morning night This place was gross There was a dead Christmas tree in the corner

It's smelting here and I was I'd wake up on the floor, the couch And I was just looking out the window Waiting for them to show up And they did. When the FBI came to his apartment, Riddle admitted that he went in the building, that he was drinking wine as people looted the Capitol. And then the FBI agents asked if he stole anything. And at first, Riddle said, no, he didn't think so.

And the FBI agent went, okay, because we have this. And they opened up a folder and they took out a picture and they have a picture of me holding the book outside of the Capitol building. The FBI knew that Riddle had stolen a book that belonged to the Capitol. It was about Senate procedure. Riddle sold it to someone in the crowd outside the Capitol for 40 bucks. The FBI also knew what time he had entered the Capitol, what time he left, and what he did inside. Jason Riddle was about to be arrested, and his life was about to completely change in ways he never expected. That was true of hundreds of people, because the FBI and the Department of Justice had launched the largest criminal investigation in the history of the federal government.

Their cases took them to every state in the country as agents tracked down a wide spectrum of people from those accused of orchestrating seditious plots and brutal assaults to the hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol but never threw a punch. FBI agents and prosecutors used videos, text messages, emails, cell phone tower data, social media posts, confidential informants, and testimony to create a comprehensive history of January 6th across more than 1,500 cases. Judges and juries evaluated that evidence in court. But in the world of politics, Trump rode a wave of conspiracy theories and misinformation to turn that history on its head and return to power. And now his administration is actively trying to erase what actually happened. Today, we'll tell you the story of how the massive effort to hold people accountable became Trump's launch pat to return to power.

And the surprising ways living through the riot changed people. both rioters and cops. That's all coming up after this break. All right, we are back. Greg Rosen was a federal prosecutor. He'd spent years going after drug and gun crimes in D.C. And on January 6th, he saw a crime playing out on live TV at the Capitol. And he says he knew they needed to move into high gear immediately.

The American people expected a peaceful transition of power approximately two weeks later. And we needed to ensure that the rule of law mattered. Remember, Trump was still president. Joe Biden's inauguration was coming. And no one knew if another copycat attack or worse was about to hit. And so in those early days, hours, minutes, there was a very keen realization that if we didn't act carefully but quickly, we had no idea what was coming next. Those fears were not just speculation.

So few arrests had happened on January 6th that the people who led the riot were still out there. There are reports of large armed insurrections that will happen armed to the fucking teeth at every capital in the country. Joe Biggs was one of the leaders of the proud boys who stormed the Capitol.

Afterwards, he was saying publicly that January 6th was just a warning shot. If you don't think that this shit's about to pop off, you're out of your guy. so a major part of the Justice Department's mission at first was to prevent a future attack and leads were pouring in people provided hundreds of thousands of tips and those tips could come from family members or friends or it could come from people who are sort of outside looking in trying to sleut their way into identifying an individual or whatnot people turned in neighbors

a match on a dating app, ex-husbands, a fellow patient at the dentist, who was showing off riot videos on a phone, and a son even turned in his father. One tip pointed to a man in South Georgia, the town of Americus. Hello? McCall. Hey, hey, Lewis. Like a lot of people, McCall Calhoun recorded himself, storming the Capitol. And like a lot of people, he posted about it online. And that got the attention of local assistant district attorney Louis Lamb.

And Lamb decided to record their call. You know, those statements that you made on Facebook, those certainly caught my attention, you know, along with the, we're coming back armed and ready for war. The exact quote from Calhoun's post was, If this deal doesn't get fixed, there's talk of patriots coming back, this time fully armed for war. Calhoun told Lamb, this was all just a big misunderstanding. As far as the week coming back, what I said was the word on the street is, and people were talking about that in the crowd.

That's all I was communicating was what I was hearing. I mean, I'm not going back to Washington armed or anything. But Calhoun said he was serious about one thing, the people needed to get ready because the country under Joe Biden was set to become some kind of communist dictatorship. patrolled by violent Antifa terrorists. I mean, what do you think? I'm not aware of Antifa burning anybody's house down in South Georgia.

If this phone call sounds almost a little casual, there's a reason for that. Calhoun was a local criminal defense attorney for decades. So he and Lamb knew each other. They even faced off in court in a murder trial. Now Calhoun was posting about killing people. And that made Laam worried. But it also concerns me for the public at large because... I didn't threaten anyone.

Well, I mean, except Democrats and communists. Well, if I said something like a communist crossed the line and going to a civil war or something, then... Well, I mean, you did say that you're ready to kill them and get ready. You can do headshots from 200 yards. And, I mean, McCall, it makes you sound dangerous. And it makes sane, normal people nervous, you know, that somebody who is heavily armed says those kinds of comments. Yeah, well, everybody's heavily armed. I mean, and it's, you know, it's...

Before long, the FBI was at McCall Calhoun's door. All right, McCall, what I'm asking to do is have your consent to go back in that's fair bedroom where you were staying. The DA had sent the feds a recording of that call, and Calhoun's, Calhoun was arrested, charged with multiple nonviolent crimes for storming the Capitol. The connection between talk and action was something investigators had to look at in every case, but was just a wild online rant, and what was a real threat? Because as much as Calhoun ranted online about wanting to kill Democrat communists, he was not personally violent on January 6th.

But for other people, all that talk of civil war, public executions, and revolution helped lead to real violence. Okay. So just so you know, my name is Enrique Aramenta. I'm a special agent with the FBI. Okay. My name's Agent Elias. I'm a special agent.

You seem to have a pretty good idea while we're here, right? Daniel Rodriguez was arrested in California, about two months after the riot. He was in his late 30s at the time. And Rodriguez told the FBI his path to the Capitol kind of all started with the far-right conspiracy show, Info Wars. He said the show opened his eyes to how the world really works, and who's really in charge. Globalists and unelected officials, elitists, you know, people who are obsessed with power and control. When Trump said the election was stolen, Rodriguez believed it. And when Trump called his supporters to D.C. for the sixth, he listened.

I thought that there was going to be battles across the country. I thought that there was going to be fighting for some reason in different cities. And I thought that the main fight, the main battle was going to be in D.C. because Trump called everyone there. And then I thought that that was going to bring BLM and Antifa there. And it was going to be like a big battle. That's what I really thought. On the night before January 6th, Rodriguez wrote to a group chat with other Trump supporters, There will be blood. Welcome to the Revolution. The next day, he joined the mob at the Lower West Terrace tunnel. That was the site of the worst violence that day. His goal, he said, was to do everything he could to push past the police line and get people inside the Capitol.

I'm just, we're trying to get in the building to try to occupy the building. Okay. So I called, I called, I shouted, I turned around and I'm like, hey, we need tasers up here. I thought someone was to come up with a taser, not hand me a taser. After Rodriguez asked for a taser, someone handed him one. And that's when the rioters pulled a cop out of the tunnel and into the mob. That cop was Michael Phanone. People started to attack

Fanon. They punched him, grabbed for his gun, and then Rodriguez went up in the scrum and plunged the taser into the back of Fanon's neck. Twice. Why did you taser him? You said he was struggling. At that point, he's struggling

to be let go. And you chose to assault him while he's struggling? Well, I just felt that, like, I didn't know what they were going to do to him. And so you tasered him to protect him? Not, not, I mean, that sounds stupid. I don't know if I praised him to protect him, but maybe just to, like, so he wouldn't struggle and get hurt, maybe.

And honestly, I didn't think very much about it because when I did it, I was like, oh, my God, would I just do. Rodriguez said he thought he was saving the country, but that's not how things worked out. I'm so sorry. I didn't know that we were doing the wrong thing. I thought we were doing the fucking right thing. I thought we were going to be... I'm so stupid.

I thought I was going to be awesome. I thought I was a good guy. Over time, the Justice Department moved from investigations to court. Here's Greg Rosen, the prosecutor. It is certainly the largest federal prosecution in American history. In terms of the statistics, we prosecuted approximately 1,593 cases and had approximately 260-plus trials. There were only two defendants that were fully acquitted, so very high success rate. The only major setback they faced was when the Supreme Court narrowed a law that prosecutors were using to charge certain people

with obstructing Congress. But most people, more than a thousand, pleaded guilty. And here's where it's important to understand the wide spectrum of people's involvement in the riot. You can basically separate it into three categories. First, there were a few hundred people accused of some type of violence. These are people like Daniel Rodriguez, and they were some of the highest priority cases

with more severe punishments. Rodriguez, for example, pleaded guilty to assault Phonone. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. And then there was a second category of cases, seditious conspiracy, basically planning to use force, violence to stop the electoral certification. Conspiracies are dangerous because they represent a tier of conduct that is not impulsive. It is not, I got swept up in the moment and sort of, quote, walked into the U.S. Capitol. And it's incredibly corrosive to the rule of law when individuals, get together and plan behaviors like this.

These cases were a big swing from the Justice Department. And after weeks of testimony, juries found leaders of both the proud boys and the oathkeepers guilty of seditious conspiracy. The case against the proud boys was especially serious. A judge, appointed by Trump, sentenced proud boy leader Enrique Tario to 22 years in prison. And then there was a third category of cases. This is basically the largest group, including hundreds of other people. people who did storm the Capitol building, but were not involved in a conspiracy and did not

personally assault police. You know, each one individual did not necessarily commit a violent act, though there were many violent acts that day. But the collective entity, the monolith that existed, created sort of the perfect storm to overrun the U.S. Capitol Police and Congress. Some of the people in that category got prison time, like that South Georgia lawyer, McCall Calhoun. He was convicted and sentenced to a year and a half in prison. But the courts did not throw the book at all the defendants in that category. Hundreds of people got no prison time at all.

Jason Riddle, who chugged that bottle of wine in the Capitol, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 90 days in lockup. But what happened next showed how the effort to use prison to get people to reform or make amends for January 6th sometimes backfired. First of all, just listening to to how Riddle described the prison he was sent to. It's like a nursing home. It's a joke. You're not really afraid for your safety and there's just a bunch of

old people gossiping and talking crap about each other and getting fat. And inside, he was not some pariah for what he did on January 6th. If anything, it was the opposite. Like, correctional officers are giving me props and the guy

who ran the block, he was a mafia guy. He was waiting for me in my cell when I got there. He wanted to meet me for just being at the riot. And he loved me for being at the riot. And every day he'd walk by my cell and he'd call me a patriot and a hero. He'd be like, hey, you patriot, you hero. He'd call me every single day. I got called a patriot and a hero. My nickname was Trump. This was not just the case at the prison where Riddle was. A few dozen of the people charged with the most serious crimes like assault ended up in one section of the D.C. jail, basically just for January 6th defendants.

This is a free call from An incarcerated individual at Correctional Treatment Facility I got a lot of calls from inmates there while they were awaiting trial. The conditions were bad. It's been well documented that the jail fails to meet basic standards and there was a lot of infighting.

One told me it was like the movie Mean Girls, but with racist, anti-Semitic extremists. But they also bonded. Brandon Fellows had stormed the Capitol and smoked a joint in a senator's office. He was jailed pending trial for allegedly harassing his probation officer. He told me that getting locked up only made him more radical. They made an enemy for sure. You know, I didn't like them before, but now

they made an enemy. And when you say they, well, who do you mean by they? The DOJ, the Biden administration, that's why they, when they offered me a time-served plea deal. I'm sorry, I just don't negotiate with terrorists. So you're more political than ever, it sounds like. Oh, yeah, no, they really made the wrong decision. Every night at the D.C. jail, the January, January 6th defendant started singing the National Anthem together, and their supporters recorded it over a scratchy jailhouse phone. Soon, that ritual would become much more famous. That's coming up after this break. Okay, we are back. There are a lot of reasons covering January 6th has been an unusual experience, and it wasn't just because of the period of my life where I got multiple calls a day from January 6th defendants in jail.

One of the wildest parts has been watching what seemed like a national consensus about the riot crumble under our feet. Back in early 2021, a majority of the Congress believed Trump should be impeached for inciting the attack, and even Republican senators who voted against convicting Trump, like that. Mitch McConnell, called January 6th an act of domestic terrorism. And a year after the attack, this is what Republican Senator Ted Cruz was saying. We are approaching a solemn anniversary this week, and it is an anniversary of a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol, where we saw the men and women of law enforcement demonstrate incredible courage, incredible bravery. But what Cruz did not seem to realize was that the consensus about January 6th, had been changing, at least on the right.

You called this a terror attack when, by no definition, was it a terror attack? That's a lie. You told that lie on purpose, and I'm wondering why you did. Tucker Carlson confronted Cruz on Fox News, and Cruz, rather than stand his ground, seemed to sense which way the winds were blowing. The way I phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy and it was frankly dumb. I don't buy that. Cruz said he only meant to call the people who assaulted police terrorists.

But even that was no longer part of the consensus. January 6th was becoming another Democrat hoax. In retrospect, all the signs were there from the beginning. The consensus was always a little shaky because the conspiracies had been bubbling up from the very beginning. There's this C-SPAN clip I keep thinking about from the night of January 6th. On screen, police were still trying to secure the building. C-SPAN. opened their phones to callers.

So just a couple of thoughts. A guy named Brad called in with a theory. There are some pictures of some of the people who have joined in today's crazy acts that have been seen both prior Antifa demonstrations. Brad, where are you finding that information? On Twitter. And you trust it. Yeah.

I mean, they're pictures. Those photos that spread online on Twitter were of Trump. supporters. But that same night, Fox News ran with those theories too. Keep in mind, we don't know who all were the instigators in this. I think a lot of it is the Antifa folks. I've been sent pictures. And there are some reports that Antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd. As every conspiracy theory popped up and was debunked, another would take its place, even though they never really made sense together. Like it was Antifa doing all the destruction.

or actually a false flag by the deep state to make Trump supporters look bad, or maybe it was just not really a big deal. Republican Congressman Andrew Clyde said as much. You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit. But what all these stories had in common was this. January 6th was not Trump's fault, and it was not his supporters' fault either. If there are victims, it was the people who were arrested.

Of course, no one can shape the beliefs of the Republican Party like Donald Trump. And in his campaign, rather than running away from January 6th, if anything, Trump ran on it. Ladies and gentlemen, Justice for All, featuring President Donald J. Trump and the J6 choir. Trump decided to open the very first rally of his recent. election campaign in Waco, Texas with a song. It was that recording of the January 6th defendants in jail singing the national anthem. But now it was mixed with ambient music and Trump reading the Pledge of Allegiance. It was all produced by Cash Patel. Yes, that Cash Patel, the current FBI director. Trump said the people who perpetrated the January 6th attack were political prisoners.

For those who have been wronged and betrayed, of which there are many people out there that have been wronged and betrayed. I am your retribution. We will take care. And it wasn't just in Waco. Again and again, Trump called the criminal charges against the rioters a con job based on a giant lie. That was, I call them the J6 hostages. Many of those people are very innocent people. They did nothing wrong. And they're great people. Many of them are just great people. That summer, Trump himself was indicted by the Department of Justice for allegedly using fraud and other illegal means to overturn the 2020 election. Trump described himself as one more victim of political persecution, just like the riot defendants. And he kept playing that song at his rallies.

Must have been distracting when you have President Trump releasing a song with your defendant's voices recorded on the jailhouse phones. I mean, that might be the understatement of the century. This is Greg Rosen again, the prosecutor. Distracting is obviously one word for it. What are the words you would use? I mean, insane? What was insane for prosecutors was a badge of honor for January 6th defendants. After being called domestic terrorists by the FBI, now the former, possible future president, was calling them patriots. Jason Riddle was watching all of this unfold, and he had every reason to embrace the story Trump was telling.

After all, in prison, people called him a hero, and money was at stake. some defendants had raised tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. But two things changed for Riddle. First, his drinking problem. After one bender, his probation officer put him on a breathalyzer to make sure he stopped drinking. Otherwise, he'd go to jail. The way he puts it, the law forced him to get sober. And just, I needed help.

And that was the problem. I couldn't admit that. And once I was able to admit that, it made a whole lot easier. He got his life back on track, found a steady job. And it also made him rethink a lot of things, including Trump. The things he says definitely didn't have the same effect on me without alcohol at night. Like all these things that I used to find funny. What was Trump support now? I'm just finding really annoying.

And then Trump did something that shocked him, changed his whole perspective. When Trump was indicted in New York City, this was over the hush money payments he made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, he called for protests. Trump's saying today he expects to be arrested on Tuesday and is calling for protests. And I remember the obsessive part of my brain thinking, how could you do that? Someone else can get killed. Another Ashley Babbit can happen. You can't do that. I remember that that was my epiphany. Trump's asking people to do that because he doesn't care about who gets hurt. He doesn't care about repercussions. He only cares about himself.

But Jason Riddle was an outlier. Please welcome President-elect Donald J. Trump. Unlike in 2020, Trump won the 2024 election and on a platform that embraced January 6th and the rioters. Frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There's never been anything like this in this country. After winning, the Department of Justice dismissed their criminal cases against Trump because of the policy against prosecuting a sitting president. That only left the 1,500 more January 6th cases.

And just before the inauguration, J.D. Vance, the vice president-elect, was asked how far those pardons would go. I think it's very simple. Look, if you protested peacefully on January the 6th, and you've had Merrick Garland's Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. And there's a little bit of a gray area there. Now, even at this point, January 2025, the FBI was still looking for people who assaulted cops. So when Greg Rosen heard Vance's comments, he thought maybe that work could actually continue.

Obviously, it would be fair to say that I understood that there might be changes to our prosecution, but I thought there was a runway so that we could focus on those individuals who committed violence against police officers. After all, even Ted Cruz had called those people terrorists. So Rosen was stunned by what Trump decided to do on his first day in office. So this is January 6th. These are the hostages. Approximately 1,500 for a pardon. Yes.

Full pardon. Full pardon. Full pardon. Trump gave nearly every January 6th defendant a full pardon. It did not matter what they did. That spectrum was flattened. Everyone, in Trump's view, was a victim. The only partial exceptions were 14 people

who were connected to the seditious conspiracy cases against the proud boys at Oathkeepers. Those 14 got commutations, meaning they got out of prison, but still had the felony conviction on their records. Hey, everybody, we're here with all that... Look around all the... Daniel Rodriguez had cried and blamed Trump after he was arrested.

But after the pardon, he got out of prison and celebrated. I want to say thank you, President Trump. You know, you're doing a great job. Everybody's going for you. We're all proud that you won and you're supporting the country again. Trump's decision to issue mass pardons meant people were suddenly freed who had long criminal rap sheets for prior crimes, including rape, assault, child abuse, domestic violence.

Some of the former defendants talked about going after their prosecutors, posted their names online, whipped up online mobs against them. Enrique Atario, the former proud boys leader, started talking about revenge. The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted. Dozens of prosecutors who worked on January 6th cases were fired. Greg Rosen was demoted, and then later chose to move. resign. Meanwhile, the Trump Justice Department hired a man named Jared Wise. He was at the riot,

went inside the Capitol, yelled, kill him, kill him, as rioters assaulted police. He had pleaded not guilty, and Trump dismissed his charges. So now that Trump is back in office, he has flipped the story of January 6th on its head, and he's using the power of the government to try to make that the official story. Trump said that the pardons would help lead to a, quote, national reconciliation over January 6th. But since then, many people's lives are falling apart. Some are still doing damage. One man has been charged with molesting multiple children, including an 11-year-old.

Another is facing charges of possessing images and videos of child sexual abuse. And another has been accused of threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader. I asked the White House about those cases, and White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Trump, quote, exercised his constitutional authority to issue pardons to individuals who were abused by the Biden justice system and aggressively over-prosecuted for political purposes. In one case, just five days after Trump's pardons, on a state road in Indiana. The reason I'm pulling yours for 70 and a 55. Any reason for going that fast today? Sir, I'll just keep you on the traffic.

Matthew Huddle was driving when he was stopped by a sheriff's deputy for speeding. Huddle told the cop right away who he was. I just want to let you know that I'm a January 6th defendant. What do you mean? I stormed the cap on waiting on my pardon. Really? Yeah, and I can't really afford to get into any trouble right now. But even before January 6th, Huddle had a long history of problems with the law,

like drunk driving and a criminal record for violent child abuse. Trump's pardon only covered his capital riot case for pleading guilty to storming the building. So today you are going to come with me. Well, I can't. You're going to have to, okay? You're going to come with me today, all right? No, I can't go to jail for this, sir. As the deputy started to write down the paperwork, Huddle bolted.

Don't you do it, buddy. No, no, no, no, no. At this point, the body cam video released by law enforcement cuts off. According to the sheriff's department, Huddle reached for a handgun and said, I'm shooting myself. The sheriff's deputy said he feared for his life and shot and killed Huddle. The shooting was declared justified. Now, Huddle's name is one more on a list of former January 6 defendants who have died.

It's read at a weekly vigil in front of the White House. Matthew Huddle, rest in peace. Burt Shively, rest in peace. There's just a handful of people there, some former defendants, others who are just supporters. Dominic Box is a regular. He said he hopes President Trump understands that life after pardons has not been easy. I've been couch hopping effectively since I got out of prison, and, you know, I've been selling the few items that I still have, shoes, clothes. I've got some different items from jail in prison that I'm trying to sell some J6 memorabilia.

But it's really just, you know, praying and staying positive that eventually, I'll find an opportunity that'll work. Box was convicted of non-violent charges for storming the Capitol and recording it all. He ended up locked up, largely because he got arrested for drunk driving while he was awaiting trial. Now, he just wants to find work. But given the scarlet eye of insurrection that I wear, even despite the pardons, very few companies are willing to put you in a forward-facing role. Box said he's hoping that Trump will get the January 6th defendant's money, restitution,

to compensate for their arrests. So far, the family of Ashley Babbitt has received nearly $5 million from a settlement with the Trump administration. But it's unclear if the administration will go any further. You know, despite everything that I have experienced, lost, given up, I wouldn't change anything about it. Really? Absolutely enough. Even with everything with the job loss, you would still do everything the same. Everything. The only thing I would probably do different is maybe bring another GoPro and get some more. footage, but ultimately, you know, I still believe, and I would say I know that the election

in 2020 wasn't clean. I believe that I was there doing what every American should have done and that's voicing their concerns, supporting their preferred presidential candidate. But then there's Jason Riddle. He had stopped supporting Trump, but then Trump offered him a full pardon. It would not wipe away all the news stories about his case, but it would clear his criminal record. The kind of thing employers ask about. The kind of thing that he said he still gets hassled over at the airport. And for a moment, he thought about it. But then he asked his lawyer to send a letter formally rejecting the pardon. I can't accept, you know, this is cops have died. Trump is promoting criminal behavior. That was a criminal act. January 6th was a crime.

And I think it's going to result in more death eventually. There's going to be another riot. Something's going to happen if you keep promoting these lies. That's what January 6th was as a result of his lies. So I don't want to go down that path. I'm just going to avoid that at all costs. In the aftermath of Trump's pardons, the police officers who were injured on January 6th

are also figuring out where they go next. Michael Phenone has been looking for work because of his injuries and the fact that he felt no support from his bosses at the police department, he resigned back in 2021. When I sat down to talk with him, we watched his body cam footage from the riot together. And the most surprising thing in that whole interview

was what he said after we watched the moments when he was pleading for his life. How does it feel to watch that? You know, it doesn't... It makes me miss the job. Really? Yeah. Why?

I mean, I love to be in a cop. I really did. And it was like, I mean, it's one of those professions that just like, you know, like cannibalizes you. Like, it just becomes your entire identity. And for 20 years, like, that's who I was. All my social circles were cops and, you know, my kids played with other cop's kids. And, you know, you watch this now, and it's like, it's the last time I got to be a cop. Like, that's literally the last day of my career.

I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear you say, this is almost nostalgic in a way for you, given how it was probably the worst day of your career in policing. I mean, like, it, Was it incredibly violent? Yes. You know, was January 6th traumatic? Yes.

Was it more traumatic than other experiences in my career? I don't know. I mean, what was traumatic was everything that happened afterwards. Like, we're still living in the midst of my fucking trauma. You know, I've got a president that fucking pardoned. all the people that assaulted me, called them patriots. 50% of the country thinks I'm a traitor to the country. I get death threats every single fucking day.

I lost my career. I lost my friends. I had my entire life turned upside down all because of me doing my job. I can't draw a straight line between this and the six, but I've been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, anxiety adjustment disorder, and PTSD symptoms. Daniel Hodges, the cop who was repeatedly assaulted and then crushed inside a door in that tunnel on January 6th, he is still with the police department. But the Capitol riot has changed his life.

Fundamentally, I'm still the same person. I still value the same things. I still want the same things. It's made me a little sadder because I was really hopeful after the sixth that this is it. You know, nobody can see what just transpired here and want to support these people anymore. And that's made me sad. It's made me a little bitter about humanity, but not completely. I still have hope.

I still believe that, you know, we can be better. After covering January 6th, these past five years, it's clear that there is not just one story about that day. Those 1,500 cases represent more than 1,500 stories of perpetrators and victims. There are a lot of true stories to tell about that day, some that have yet to be told. But there is one story that is wrong on a fundamental level. It's President Trump's story. that January 6th was a, quote, Day of Love.

Because when I've talked to people who were there, the members of Congress who feared for their lives, the police officers who were beaten, the family members of people who died, and even the people who stormed the Capitol, what I see is a day of loss. Officers like Michael Fanon and Daniel Hodges told me they know they're not going to change anyone's minds

by telling the true story of the violence they experienced. So both told me they'll talk about it. But now it's for the future, for history. That is the same reason Greg Rosen, the prosecutor, is still talking. And so, you know, I think it's disappointing that people believe that what they did to police officers on that day or what they did to members of Congress or what they did to the institution itself was somehow justified or righteous. but I'm hoping that the history of this prosecution is not simply memorialized by those feelings, but by the historical record in the court cases, and then eventually what happens years and decades later. That it may be the history, as we tell it right now in 2025, won't be the history that we tell in 2035 or 2045.

That's my hope. This story is based on a five-year reporting effort by NPR's investigations team. You can see much more of our work on our website, NPR.org, where we have a comprehensive database of every January 6th criminal case, with hundreds of body cam and surveillance videos presented in court, plus a timeline of events, and much more. We are still fighting to get records from many more cases. Among the people who contributed reporting to this project are Noah Caldwell, Nick McMillin, Monica of Stacheva, Dina Temple Rastin, Meg Anderson, Arzu Rizvani, Barry Hardiman, Austin Fast, Emine Yucel, Allison Mullenkamp, and Kaylee Fox Shannon. This episode was produced by Monica of Stacheva with help from Casey Morel. The story was edited by Barry Hardiman, additional help from Brett Bachman and Eric McDaniel, audio engineering by Robert Rodriguez.

music courtesy of audio network blue dot sessions and universal production music. Legal help from Micah Ratner, Ashley Messenger, Johannes Durgey, and Maisha Galiba. The executive producer of Trump's terms is Mathani Maturi. NPR's chief investigations editor is Bob Little. Our editor-in-chief is Tommy Evans. And at this point, I need to especially highlight the work of NPR Investigations researcher Barbara Van Wurcombe. For five years, she worked exhaustively and carefully to maintain NPR's database of January. January 6th cases. At first, we were all ready for just a few hundred. But then, over the course

of the years, that caseless just got bigger and bigger. And Barbara never wavered. She watched hearings, read hundreds, probably thousands of court documents, and logged it all. NPR's database was used by prosecutors, defense attorneys, riot defendants, researchers, even an art project. And now that the government's own database has been disappeared, it is the most comprehensive resource out there on January 6th. And that is because of Barbara. This was just the latest project in a long career for Barbara. Over decades at NPR, she contributed to NPR stories that won multiple Peabody, DuPont, Edward R. Murrow, and countless other awards. And I know she has personally made so many of my stories better. Barbara is now going into a well-deserved retirement. And so on behalf of myself

in NPR, I just wanted to thank her for dedication to this journalism and for being a great colleague and a friend. We're going to miss you. This is NPR News.