Gay January 6 Rioter Takes Responsibility: 'I Don't Want' the Pardon

A gay January 6 rioter who says he was in the throes of alcoholism when he participated in the insurrection is now taking responsibility for his life and his actions – and he doesn't want a pardon.

"I'm a recovering alcoholic," convicted rioter Jason Riddle told New Hampshire Public Radio. "At the time, I was not recovering. I would combine alcohol with my politics and I'd put it online too. 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."

Riddle, who served three months and was fined $800 for the theft of wine and a book from the Capitol, as well as charges related to his actions at the Capitol building, expounded on the link between where he was in his life at the time and his actions, telling the outlet, "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. That's easy to do."

"And I fit right into the MAGA circle."

Recalling that tumultuous day – when thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, committing vandalism and attacking uniformed police officers even as lawmakers were set to certify Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 elections – Riddle described a free-for-all, carnival-like atmosphere.

"The overall feeling was kind of like this jubilant celebration," he told NHPR. "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?"

Continued Riddle: "It was all a joke to me, even as a police officer came in the room and pointed at everyone. He said, 'Get out of here, get out of here.' And he saw me holding the bottle and he locked eyes with me and went, 'You chug that and get out of here.' And I stopped chugging it and I left."

But the revels soon started to sour. After leaving the building, Riddle heard about another rioter, Ashley Babbit, being shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she attempted to crawl into the Speaker's Lobby through a smashed window, despite the lobby being barricaded.

"That's the moment it all changed," Riddle said of learning of the fatality. "I was like, 'Oh my God. All right, I did something.' And all that jubilation and all the immaturity, it all turned into fear."

Despite the mob's violent attacks against uniformed police, Riddle said he was treated like a celebrity after his arrest by corrections officers, as well as by fellow inmates.

"The first thing a correctional officer said to me when I reported in the booking was, 'Let's go, Brandon,'" Riddle recalled. (The phrase is a hard-right refrain stemming from a mishearing of a crowd chanting "Fuck Joe Biden," and became a stand-in for that epithet.)

"So I definitely clung on to this patriot hero nonsense," Riddle went on to say.

That changed, however, upon his release.

"After I got out of prison, Trump had gotten indicted and he put on social media asking people to come out and protest for him," Riddle explained. "And I remember thinking, 'What are you doing, Trump? Remember what happened at the riot? Someone might get hurt. Why would you ask people to protest?'"

"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."

Now, Riddle said, he's put his life in order once again.

"I'm a recovering alcoholic. And I also had some other mental health problems. That's a bad mix, it's a vicious cycle," he said. "I got rid of drinking, and now I have no problem."

When Trump was inaugurated for a second term, he issued a blanket pardon for thousands of rioters, regardless of the level of violence they engaged in. Trump also commuted the prison sentences of more than a dozen people.

That doesn't sit right with Riddle.

"I'm able to handle my mental health problems," he told NHPR, "but I still just can't help but think of all the the suicides amongst the Capitol Police officers since the riot.... 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."

Riddle recalled working out at a gym with his husband when news of the blanket pardon came on the television.

"It's almost like he was trying to say it didn't happen," Riddle told NHPR. "And it happened. I did those things, and they weren't pardonable. I don't want the pardon. And I also learned that I can reject the pardon."

"And I did reject the pardon," he added, "because I'm thinking down the road [if] an employer looks in my background, they see misdemeanors... Misdemeanors with a presidential pardon – I think that tends to draw more attention. And I'm sure that's fine in the MAGA world with whoever supports Trump, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering if the job I'm applying to, if they like Trump."

Riddle is not alone in rejecting the pardon and seeking to rehabilitate his life by taking responsibility for himself and his actions.

"Another Capitol rioter, Pamela Hemphill, has also refused a pardon, saying: 'We were wrong that day, we broke the law,'" Pink News reported.

The British outlet quoted Hemphill saying, "Accepting a pardon would serve to contribute to their gaslighting and false narrative."

"It's an insult to the Capitol police officers and to the rule of law and to the nation," Hemphill added. "It contributes to the propaganda that it was a peaceful protest, that the DOJ is weaponized against Trump."