Hundreds of Jan 6ers Are Hoping For Big DOJ Payday

Many of those who are found guilty of crimes linked to January 6 wonder: how far will the Ministry of Justice go to help people who, in 2021, took into account the call of President Trump to walk on the Capitol?

“You will see a lot of action on hostages J6,” said Trump shortly after being inaugurated for his second term. And almost all those who have been convicted received stands for their actions, with the exception of a few oath and proud boys, whose convict was commissioned.

But for some who have been prosecuted, a simple explosion is not enough. They want justice in the form of a cash reward: financial regulations of the Trump administration, awarded by the Doj.

There are several efforts to get there. Some January 6 have their own prosecution against the government in which they seek compensation. The proud boys submitted one of these projects last month. Another effort is led by a lawyer who went to high school with Trump, Peter Ticktin. He is joined by Mark McCloskey, the Missouri lawyer for bodily injuries who obtained a national instant figure status in 2020 to brandish an assault rifle at Black Lives Matters, and Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” prosecutor of 2020 who pleaded guilty in 2023.

This effort always brings together customers before depositing an official prosecution. Ticktin met Ed Martin, the former American lawyer, the Impresario aligned by Phyllis Schlafly, and the current DOJ lawyer. Martin spent years pleading for January 6 before Trump’s second term. Other signs, such as the president being Donald Trump and the GM suggesting, earlier this year, that he would reimburse certain defendants of January 6 for damages that they should not have gone unnoticed.

Lawyers and former defendants of January 6 told TPM that Martin’s presence in the Doj had been a very strong signal that the administration was receptive to their claims. But it was less clear, they said, if the government would open its chests to people seeking to take advantage of the story which, in fact, the rioters of January 6 were victims of an elaborate government plot.

Then came the Ashli ​​Babbitt regulations.

According to a lawyer on January 6, the result of this case “amazed a lot of people”.

Babbitt was shot dead on January 6 by a Capitol police officer while crossing a glass door leading to an area where the members of the Congress were sheltered. His family continued the government for $ 30 million in 2024 for allegations of unjustified death, negligence, aggression and battery. The Trump administration set the trial for $ 4.975 million last month.

“This prosecution is perceived by many of being resolved for political reasons,” said the lawyer, who has granted anonymity to freely discuss his legal strategy. “And so I think people, other defendants of January 6, think, if politics worked for it, why wouldn’t they work for us?”

The case of Babbitt is unique in several ways of those of other defendants of January 6. On the one hand, she died. The claims are different and have less to do with what many defendants of January 6 paint as a plot, staged by federal officials, to trap them in various ways.

The most important effort to provide a vehicle to the government to compensate the defendants of January 6 seems to be the one led by Ticktin and McCloskey. When it was first revealed by the New York Times in March, the two men said they intended to file a complaint in a month. When writing these lines, no prosecution was filed.

But Ticktin and McCloskey have both publicly declared that they now represent around 400,400 defendants in the effort. McCloskey told a Missouri radio station on Wednesday that Sidney Powell was also involved in the effort. Powell did not return the requests for TPM comments.

“He understands what kind of situation in which we are in, what I call a war,” said Ticktin on a podcast last month of Trump’s attitude towards rioters. “He has this mentality.” Ticktin reproached separately on January 6 on the usual distribution of characters: Biden administration, federal informants. But in another appearance in the podcast earlier this year, he added a unique turn: Ukraine played a role (which else?). “The fact is that we know that Ukrainians were also involved in the January 6 planning. What if you look at what happened, why he doesn’t? ” Ticktin did not return any requests for comments.

Ticktin met Ed Martin in May, who would have examined pardon requests for Stewart Rhodes and others who received switches. This effort is apparently separated from the decision to obtain compensation for the defendants of January 6.

Trenniss J. Evans III is a forgiven riot from January 6 who, according to a witness who spoke with the FBI, took shots in the office of Nancy Pelosi. He helped Ticktin to organize the meeting with Martin and was active in the movement to request compensation and pardons for defendants of January 6 both through his non-profit organization in the United States and another group, American Rights Alliance.

Evans told TPM that if the Babbitt affair had drawn attention, the legal problems at stake were distinct. He explained that he had his own compensation claim, distinct from that pursued by Ticktin and McCloskey, and that he spoke to officials of the Doj and the FBI on this subject.

“These people have been opened and they listen-I think they are aware of the reprehensible acts,” he said.

All this makes the mind: none of these people are the victim if you think of what caused this: their decision to participate in the Capitol assault, a decision which aimed to reverse a legitimate electoral result. As a former prosecutor of January 6 said it to TPM, everyone “wants to cash, but what?”

“The only reason they could take is because you have people like Ed Martin who will tip the scales for the benefit of the people who stormed the Capitol,” said the person. “And the only reason he is defensible in their minds is because they have done so in favor of Donald Trump.”

Evans has encapsulated this point better than anyone: the root problem here is not the coup attempt. This is the responsibility for that which now requires responsibility.

“I am not saying that I have not broken laws or that I did not hurt anything when entering the Capitol,” he told TPM. “I just say that what they did afterwards was a much greater injustice.”