Adam Johnson spoke in an apologetic tone as he stood before a federal judge in Washington, DC.
The Florida native became an iconic face of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot after he was photographed smiling and waving as he carried a podium emblazoned with the U.S. House of Representatives seal around the Capitol rotunda.
“I’m ashamed that I was involved in this,” Johnson told the judge.
Nearly two years later, a Manatee County man posted on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter: “Feeling more guilty than a J6 for leaving the toilet seat up at the airport.”
“The Lectern Guy” has posted photos featuring his famous image to his more than 65,000 followers, auctioned off a handmade miniature wooden podium and touted his closeness to fellow defendants in the Jan. 6 trial while rejecting the idea that they did anything wrong.
The more than 1,400 people charged with crimes related to the Capitol attack are now facing a moment: a legal, political and cultural atonement underway that will nullify, forgive and even celebrate their crimes.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that prosecutors exceeded their authority when they used federal obstruction of justice laws to indict hundreds of people in these cases. This week, the justices ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for official acts, potentially allowing former President Donald Trump to go free in his failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
As President Trump’s candidacy looks increasingly likely Polls have shown a softening of attitudes toward the storming of the Capitol, especially among Republicans, and political scientists and researchers of extremism say some thought leaders are pushing the culture from condemnation of the Jan. 6 attack to acceptance.
“I suspect that because of these changes, some of the defendants in the Jan. 6-related cases saw an opportunity to gain some publicity and sympathy,” said Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an organization that studies extremism.
On the phone last month Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, Johnson downplayed the seriousness of his posts on X, saying much of what he writes online is meant to be sarcastic.
Still, he admitted he was genuinely frustrated. Said He believes people like him have been treated too harshly, especially compared to other criminal defendants.
“I’m not asking for special treatment,” he said. “I’m asking for fair treatment.”
Changing public opinion
Judges have regularly condemned the Capitol riots and warned against normalizing the incident.
However, three years have passed since the attack and public opinion has changed significantly. About what happened that day.
A December survey by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland found that just over half of American adults They said they believe what happened on January 6 was an attack on democracy and should never be forgotten, but only 24% of Republicans agreed with that assessment, and 72% said they thought the attack has been grossly overblown.
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In the same survey, 36% of respondents said they believed the election of President Joe Biden victory It was illegal, up 7 percentage points from two years ago.
Mike Hammer, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, said the findings highlight the extreme polarization plaguing modern American politics.
“I think that definitely speaks to the health of our system and society as a whole,” Hammer said. “If political violence becomes a normal thing, I think things will be different going forward.”
While some Republicans condemn the attack on the Capitol, others see January 6 as a just cause, including Trump.
The former president has called those incarcerated “hostages” and “incredible patriots.” Trump, who is seeking reelection, has said he might pardon at least some of the rioters who tried to stay in power despite losing the election.
Jacob Chansley, widely known as the QAnon Shaman and another prominent face of the insurrection, ran for a short-lived congressional seat in Arizona.
During his sentencing, former West Virginia state Rep. Derrick Evans told the judge that participating in the riot was a “serious mistake.” Less than a year later, after serving three months of his sentence, Evans ran unsuccessfully for Congress. On X, he described himself as a “patriot” and called the January 6 indictment an “unfair trial.”
Another Capitol rioter, Elias Irizarry, embarrassed by his sentence, recently launched a campaign for Congress in South Carolina. The New York Times reported that Irizarry’s campaign website initially mentioned his involvement in the riot as evidence that he has “always supported the conservative cause.” References to January 6th have since disappeared from the website, according to the Times.
While organized groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have seen their leadership decimated since Jan. 6, extremism researchers say justifying the incident magnifies the risk of future extremist violence.
“It’s important that leaders and people on the right speak out before this happens,” said Mark Pitcavage, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, “because those voices have an impact.”
Embrace the Riot
But without the famous photo of Johnson joyfully holding up a podium inside the Capitol rotunda, his case would have received less attention among the hundreds of indictments filed for Jan. 6. He was not accused of any violent acts.
Johnson was arrested within days of the riot and later pleaded guilty to trespassing.
During his sentencing, he told U.S. District Judge Reg Walton: He feared the country was heading toward civil war and said taking to the podium was a “very foolish idea.”
The judge encouraged Johnson to read books about the Civil War. He lamented the hyper-partisan political culture that is “dividing our country” and sentenced Johnson to 75 days in jail, a $5,000 fine and $500 in restitution.
Johnson began tweeting shortly after he was released from prison two years ago and quickly gained a following.
When he hit 40,000 followers, he posted a video of himself giving a mock acceptance speech, holding a miniature podium bearing a silhouette of his famous pose and a sign bearing the words “Take a Stand.”
“I’m grateful to the judge,” he said, “for helping me understand what happens to my family who’s been wrongfully incarcerated on a sentence that makes absolutely no sense. I’m grateful to the judge for helping me understand how terrible political persecution has become.”
His feed is full of callbacks to his famous photos.
Last month, Trump posted a photo of himself standing at a podium and next to a large wall hanging of his famous portrait on a white horse. Clutching a toy gun, he wore a hat with a white silhouette of the same portrait and a tank top with the words “If I lose it’s treason.”
“Please accept,” the caption reads.
Philip Vogel and Debra Maimone, a Pennsylvania couple who were charged with participating in the riot, asked Johnson to officiate their wedding, and in one post-wedding photo, he poses with the couple wearing the Trump hat he wore in the famous podium photo.
Johnson has been following with keen interest the case of Patrick Scruggs, a former federal prosecutor in Tampa who was arrested last year for stabbing a man in the arm during an alleged road rage incident on the Howard Frankland Bridge.
Scruggs was the prosecutor who handled Johnson’s first court appearance in 2021.
Johnson recorded the video in June while on his way to a routine court hearing in Scruggs’ case.
“This is the beginning of the end for him,” he said with a smile from behind the wheel of his car. “You don’t often see karma in your lifetime.”
He later took a photo of Scruggs’ back in the courtroom, then took another video as he was leaving the courtroom, and informed his followers of the lawyers’ concerns about pretrial publicity in Scruggs’ case.
“Everybody here at J-6 has been dragged through the mud with the news,” Johnson said, “and there’s been no impartial jury for any of us. So I’m not going to stop. In fact, I’m going to make this my new job.”
Johnson later told a Times reporter that Scruggs was not subject to the same pretrial release conditions — he was under curfew and wore an ankle monitor while his trial was pending.
“They treated him nicely and then they threw the book at me because I was laughing and waving,” he said. “This is not a picture of justice.”
He said he plans to wait to see how Scruggs’ case plays out in court.
He said the defendants in the January 6 attack were “oversentenced.” He argued that 95 percent of the rioters were “non-violent protesters.”
Asked if he regretted his actions on January 6, Johnson said he “cannot comment on that.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.