Gay Man Who Stormed Capitol Says ‘No’ to Trump’s Pardon
Jason Riddle, who served prison time for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, will not accept a pardon for his actions on that day.
Jason Riddle, a Naval veteran from Keene, New Hampshire, was a Trump supporter and a frequent attendee of Trump campaign rallies during the 2020 campaign season. He attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, to see the president one last time before Trump left office following his 2020 defeat.
“I didn’t really believe the ‘big lie,’” Riddle told Vermont Public Radio of Trump’s contention that Democrats stole the 2020 election. But he noted that he “more than likely perpetuated” the conspiracy theory on social media.
A recovering alcoholic, Riddle said his drinking exacerbated his lurch to the right, prompting him to become more angry and radicalized.
“I would combine alcohol with my politics and I’d put it online too,” he said. “I spent a lot of time on social media in the comments section arguing with strangers about nothing. And it just became more or less my identity. The less I had a life, the louder I was about being a Trump supporter. And instead of trying to figure out what was causing these problems, looking at myself, I blamed other people and politics…. I fit right into the MAGA circle.”
When the “Stop the Steal” rally attendees moved over to the U.S. Capitol building, the overall feeling was “kind of like this jubilant celebration,” Riddle said. He went along with the crowd, entering the building and heading to the Senate parliamentarian’s office, where he grabbed a bottle of wine.
“People were smashing windows and breaking things, and I went in and spotted a liquor cabinet and – doing what a good alcoholic does – just poured myself a drink because why not?”
Riddle didn’t realize the severity or the seriousness of the violence that broke out that day, including the assaults of Capitol Police officers, until he had exited the building and was told about the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, a rioter killed by an officer when she tried to breach a barricaded door to the Speaker’s Lobby.
Until learning of Babbitt’s death, Riddle said he largely treated the whole experience as a joke, even when a Capitol police officer who was trying to disperse the crowd from the parliamentarian’s office saw him holding the wine bottle.
“Once I was outside the building I started talking with this random gentleman, and he’s like, ‘I heard people are getting in there.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, they’re in there. It’s theirs.’ And I started chatting with him, and he said, ‘They’re shooting people, too.’ And I was like, ‘No they’re not. It’s a joke. I was just in there. It’s a party. They’re drinking and they’re vandalizing, but no one’s getting shot.’ And he was like ‘No, someone got shot in the neck. I saw her get brought out.’”
It was at that point that Riddle’s jubilation turned to fear.
In the wake of January 6, Riddle was tried and charged with stealing government property for taking a book and the liquor during the riot. He reached a plea deal with prosecutors and accepted a sentence of 90 days in prison and a fine of $750.
Riddle’s feelings toward the MAGA movement – which he has since distanced himself from – began to shift after he began to embrace sobriety. However, while he was serving out his sentence, he was treated – both by inmates and correctional officers – as a hero for having stormed the Capitol.
“The first thing a correctional officer said to me when I reported in the booking was, ‘Let’s go, Brandon,’” he said, referring to a common anti-Joe Biden slogan adopted by conservatives. “So I definitely clung on to this patriot hero nonsense.”
After Trump was indicted on charges of allegedly falsifying business records related to payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to conceal a past affair prior to the 2016 election, he called on his followers to come out and protest the charges.
The call to action led Riddle to become disenchanted with the president, realizing that people might get hurt if any protests devolved in the same way the “Stop the Steal” rally had.
“I remember thinking, ‘What are you doing, Trump?… Someone might get hurt. Why would you ask people to protest?” Riddle said. “And that’s when I had the epiphany, the duh moment, where I’m like, ‘He asked this because he doesn’t care about anybody other than himself.’ That’s when, on the inside, I knew and I stopped supporting him.”
Riddle is one of the more than 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists Trump recently pardoned. He learned about his pardon through a news report on TV while at the gym working out with his husband.
“I looked over at him and was like, ‘It looks like I’m pardoned today.’”
Riddle won’t accept the pardon because he believes he was in the wrong.
“It’s almost like [Trump] was trying to say it didn’t happen,” he told Vermont Public Radio. “And it happened. I did those things, and they weren’t pardonable.”
Riddle can’t help but think of the prevalence of suicides among Capitol Police officers since the riot.
“I can empathize,” he said. “I just can’t imagine — it’s got to be real hard for anyone working in that department with him coming back into office and now pardoning 1,500 people who assaulted their brothers and sisters on that day. And I think about them.”
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