There are many stories about January 6 that fall by the wayside. Some January 6 defendants got extensive media coverage, especially in the immediate aftermath of January 6, but this is not representative of the overall body.
Most defendants have remained nameless, faceless hostages. Real Americans have been rendered as caricatures as a way of pigeonholing them and glossing over the real experiences of that complicated day.
PATRIOT PETE
Peter Schwartz is many things, but an insurrectionist is not one of them. Schwartz served in the United States Army Reserve in his younger years. He ended up living a life on the road as a successful traveling welder and metallurgist. He’s a talented artist, a life-long biker, and a born-again Christian deeply interested is eschatology.
On January 6, Pete and his then-wife had gone to DC to hear their first Trump speech. Going to the Capitol building was an afterthought. After arriving, Schwartz was attacked by malicious and incompetent Capitol and Metro PD officers. I and every other defendant have long asserted that the “insurrection” was in truth just a protest that escalated into a riot – a riot incited by excessive force and police brutality against a peaceful crowd.
** Please donate to the Schwartz recovery fund here.
In the chaos that ensued, Pete picked up a spray cannister suspiciously left out by police. (Strangely, after Pete grabs a cannister, another individual originally heading to that same location appears to panic upon realizing he didn’t get to it first, raising suspicions this was planted for crisis actors.) This mace formed the basis of the false “assault” charge against Pete. Pete carried the cannister to protect himself and his wife during the panic on the West Terrace. None of the officers alleged to have been sprayed alleged injuries from Pete nor could they recall witnessing him committing crimes. So unsurprisingly the testimony of these officers was disregarded by prosecutors to save their narrative of Schwartz as a violent insurrectionist.
We found this in the jail using a shitty quality video on a propaganda tablet. I recorded a lower quality video I snuck out of the jail so I could use it to find the original, courtesy of the propagandists at MSNBC. #J6 #Fedsurrection pic.twitter.com/dtiC5zNcWV
— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) January 28, 2024
Pete spent roughly 40 minutes at the Capitol on January 6. Afterward he was turned in to the FBI by his then-coworker, Cody Canary. Despite disagreeing on politics, Pete generously drove Canary to work every day, and Canary’s own statements to the FBI even assert he and Pete were friends.
Imagine your coworker and friend drove you to and from work every day and you repayed him by turning him in to the FBI for January 6 because you disagree over politics. Pete Schwartz is serving a 14 year sentence. On the bright side, this rat got fired for snitching on Pete. pic.twitter.com/6qie5RSAko
— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) December 29, 2024
This miserable kind of betrayal is sadly not new to January 6 defendants who have been turned in by family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc. As part of the DOJ’s “shock and awe” campaign, Pete’s home was raided by 30 officers and armored vehicles. Pete’s phone was illegally seized and accessed, and he was kept in detention for days, all without a proper warrant. Pete would even have “ghost court hearings” in which the government kept Pete without bail by asserting he had bond hearings that never in fact happened.
Like many of us picked up by the feds after January 6, Pete would be bounced around the country by the US Marshals in what is dubbed “diesel therapy”. Moving from jail to jail, Pete would eventually link up with other January 6 hostages such as Jorden Mink, Julian Khater, Shane Jenkins, and Thomas Webster.
Pete was entrapped like the rest of us who went to the Capitol. After being held hostage for months on end, Pete’s marriage collapsed, his original lawyers failed time and again to secure his release from pretrial detention, and he came under intense media scrutiny portraying him as a career criminal based on largely old and petty offenses decades in the past.
I met Schwartz in the DC Gulag in early 2021. While Pete was firm in his beliefs and his boundaries, he was by no means a monster. As a Christian I was able to bond with him over a shared faith, and even as a Catholic I was able to enjoy good-spirited debates with Pete (a Protestant). As a conservative I was able to bond with him over shared cultural values and constitutional ideals. As a comedian I was able to bond with him over a shared sense of humor, often competing to draw the funniest cartoons and memes alongside others like Jessica Watkins.
Pete led Bible studies, protected genuine J6 patriots from informants and Antifa infiltrators, and never wavered in his convictions in the entire time we were in the Gulag together. Many people allow themselves to be shaped by their oppression or change who they are in captivity. Pete never changed and that was always proof to me that he was a genuine person.
** Please donate to the Schwartz recovery fund here.
DUE PROCESS DENIED
In an open letter to the American public and partisan Judge Amit Mehta Pete listed numerous constitutional and civil rights violations. Mehta was not moved by these pleas to uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Pete didn’t let his situation stop him. He would speak out whenever possible thanks to the Gateway, Cowboy Logic, etc. He wrote letters to members of Congress, including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Congressman Troy Nehls, all of which went without response. And he still fought on.
The bias of Pete’s jury was palpable. Juror #8 famously flipped him off. During the “voir dire” hearings (jury selection), 69 of 70 jurors, or 98.57%, of Pete’s jury pool were Democrats. Jurors were unhinged and acted hysterically during the trial, randomly accusing Pete and his codefendants of giving “death stares”. The emotional constitution of the jurors was seemingly so weak that one woman ran out of the jury box in the middle of trial after seeing video of an Metro PD Officer being harmed in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel. Pete and his codefendants were all found guilty on all counts.
The bad news would only get worse with time. In order to make an example of Schwartz for speaking out, Judge Mehta sentenced him to over 14 years in federal prison. That’s more than murderers in the DC jail received. At his lowest point, Pete wept, not for himself, but for his elderly parents. Pete had received the longest prison sentence of any January 6 defendant at that point. I remember being in prison myself and seeing the headlines about Pete’s sentence on a television, and my stomach sank in horror that he might never see his parents again. And the narratives about him being a dangerous criminal and Trump supporter were vomited out by the media nonstop.
** Please donate to the Schwartz recovery fund here.
BAD TO WORSE
And after all the abuse Pete endured in the DC Gulag, such as spending months on end in solitary confinement, or having a guard mace him in the eyes for seeking relief over raw sewage in his cell, Schwartz finally left DC’s Department of Corrections and made his way to the federal Bureau of Prisons. And it only got worse.
Upon being transferred from the DC Gulag to federal prison, to serve his insane 14-year sentence, Pete was placed in the most dangerous maximum-security prisons in America. A casual day could see a prison guard stabbed hundreds of times.
Immediately upon winding up in a new prison, Pete was attacked and forced into physical confrontations. Schwartz lost privileges for self-defense for a year, including losing access to phone calls. I remained in contact with his mother after getting out of prison myself. Pete was reduced to communicating via letter, half of which would be thrown out by the Bureau of Prisons.
Amazingly, and disturbingly, Pete’s conviction was OVERTURNED in the Appellate Court – and he was still kept in prison. Pete was ultimately released after winning his appeal, but only once President Trump retook office. Pete was not informed he had finally won his case, and the prison system refused to allow his attorney to give him the good news. Pete sat in prison after his conviction was invalidated over the rampant civil rights abused he faced following his arrest.
The narrative that Pete was a monster, a criminal, an insurrection? Didn’t matter. Lying reporters, malicious prosecutors, biased jurors, partisan judges? Didn’t work. A horrific 14-year sentence and years of wrongful imprisonment? Didn’t break him. Peter Schwartz didn’t just survive the full force and fury of a weaponized justice system – he WON. After over 2 years of separation, I was finally able to communicate with Pete again. After reconnecting, Pete agreed to an interview with me. For an hour and a half we covered topics like the gross smear campaign against him by the press, the abuses he faced at the hands of law enforcement, the corruption of the justice system, the psyop we lived through within the DC Gulag, and the path from prison to freedom:
Now that the January 6 defendants are no longer subject to probation or supervised release, we can speak freely with each other. The patriots who languished behind bars in the DC Gulag have been hastily reconnecting. With each day, more and more sign on to tell their story. What really happened on January 6, how they were smeared by the feds and media, and what they suffered through while locked up, and much more.
My phone has been on fire today as I reconnected with many of the men I was incarcerated with after January 6. And I’m now prepared to unveil a project that has been simmering in my head some time.
For 3 years after January 6, as I and other J6 political prisoners languished… pic.twitter.com/mForP3n8Ky
— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) December 26, 2024
These interviews, along with hundreds of pages of primary documents, will form the basis for a multi-volume history series, Artifice and Betrayal: The History of the DC Gulag. Now that their voices have been restored, the defendants will be the ones to write the authoritative history of January 6 and the lawfare that followed, not the prosecutors and media.
When closing out our interview, I asked Pete what he most felt the public needed to understand. His answer was reasonable in light of the character assassination he’s faced:
How corrupt the media is, and that they’ve portrayed so many things wrongly that people don’t know what to believe. That’s why people believe I’m somebody different than I am. That’s why they believe different things about ridiculous stuff. All these lies that get told in the media – people are steadily taking it all in but I just wish people could understand to learn HOW to take this all in. – Pete in January 6 Unfiltered
Sure enough, as of the completion of our interview and the writing of this article, CBS propagandists have been harassing Pete and those close to him. CBS has admitted it plans to run a hit-piece on him leveling accusations against him cobbled together from anyone who would stab him in the back, undoubtedly to revive the bad press Schwartz has already endured for four years now.
The narrative of Pete as a violent, criminal redneck went hand in hand with his 14-year sentence. He was a punching bag in the press for years, even recently being cited in Congressional hearings on Kash Patel’s potential FBI directorship by U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin. With his victory in the Appellate Court, and his release by President Trump from his captivity, fake news media outlets and politicians are desperate to salvage their narratives:
Even after being released, the persecution from radical leftists continues. CBS tracked down the prosecutor in a 7-year-old petty case and put high pressure on them to drag the case back up and reprosecute me in an attempt to get me thrown in jail.
When the attempts to get me thrown in jail failed, they began harassing numerous people who know me, trying to con them into conning me into doing an interview with them. After numerous rebuffed attempts from my friends and family, in a move of desperation, they pleaded with my Kentucky State Representative to talk me into it. They were slightly more forthcoming with him, and told him that they were getting somebody who claimed to be victimized by me to go on the interview.
With the amount of stalking, desperation, and harassment they have put me through, I am fairly confident that they’ve paid somebody to slander me. I have reported 2 different people from CBS to the police a few days ago and will be pursuing legal action against them if necessary.
SURVIVING FREEDOM
Schwartz has in the past attempted to raise funds in the hopes of being able to survive off it after beating his case. Judge Amit Mehta however punished him for this at sentencing, claiming it showed he had no remorse for his actions (actions he didn’t commit). Now Pete is back to square one. Pete is still looking for work due to not being provided valid identification after being released from prison. Pete needs help, and while some have been fair to him in their coverage, it’s clear that the attacks upon his character by the leftist press haven’t paused despite his vindication under the law.
I got dropped into a world that I don’t recognize. I’ve been out coming up on a month. Every time I go to the store, I’m in shock. I’m not back to work yet, the prices are crazy… Everything’s happening very fast. It’s a tough time for me now. I’m still trying to adjust from coming out of a maximum-security prison to a world where people just sometimes say hi and they don’t want nothing from you and not trying to harm you, you know. It’s a long, hard adjustment. – Pete in January 6 Unfiltered
January 6 led to Pete losing his marriage, his career, his home, and everything in-between. He needs help to survive a very uncertain future. If you’d be so inclined, please consider helping Pete’s recovery fund HERE.
The post PATRIOT PETE UNFILTERED: January 6 Hostage Peter Schwartz Kept in Prison Despite WINNING His Appeal appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.