Zachary Rehl

Like most of the thousands of protestors who entered the Capitol grounds and the building itself, Brandon had no idea that entering the usually-public space was considered trespassing on January 6^th.

Brandon climbed the steps to the Capitol and joined the hundreds of protestors who were guided towards the building. Spotting a broken-open window, Brandon stepped through it.

Inside the Capitol, he found his fellow protestors ambling through the building. A few were noisy, but most were quiet and peaceful. None of them were confronted or ordered to leave by police.

Wandering the building, Brandon found his way to Senatorial offices.  Congressman Clay Higgins (R) of Louisiana has evidence that as many as 200 FBI agents dressed as Trump supporters were in the Rotunda to guide gullible Trump supporters to key offices, therefore sealing their fate.  In one of these empty offices, Brandon connected with other young men who were smoking marijuana. However, there is no evidence that he did anything more criminal there than rebelliously take a toke from a joint passed to him as another protestor recorded video. Brandon would only later learn that the offices belonged to Senator Merkley (D) of Oregon.

Several short videos Brandon took that day confirmed that Capitol Police were joking with him, giving him information about what the statues in Statutory Hall represent and a brief history lesson.

Brandon relates that the FBI later confiscated the phone, which has video showing him asking an officer if he will be arrested for being in the Capitol. 

The officer replied, “No you will not be arrested, so long as you don’t attack anyone, steal or break anything, or go into any areas that are locked or guarded, and follow the 6 PM curfew.”

Long before the curfew arrived, Brandon left the building peacefully and returned to his family and friends in New York. As he resumed his normal life in Schenectady, Brandon had no idea that the FBI and Department of Justice, using provisions of the Patriot Act, had labelled him a “domestic terrorist” and tracked down his location.

Ten days after January 6th, Brandon was arrested. He at first faced misdemeanor charges, but was later indicted on a felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting. (This typical of how the Biden Department of Justice is misusing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, originally meant to punish the shredding of documents in a financial crime. The DOJ uses this arcane statute and misapplies it to elevate what might otherwise be misdemeanors into felonies. They then can stack charges to maximize the hard time they give to Trump supporters. Such misuse is being challenged in the Supreme Court.)  Shortly thereafter, Brandon began his long stint of incarceration.

As his mother writes, “Brandon was first held in the DC jail enduring inhumane treatment for well over one year. He was kept under strict solitary confinement for long periods, poorly nourished, and barely received healthcare.”

The jail she refers to is the infamous Correctional Treatment Facility in Washington, D.C. It has earned the moniker “the D.C. Gulag,” both for the segregated unit of J6ers held there and the jail’s overall dark, squalid living conditions that have drawn complaints even by the ACLU. Brandon and his fellow J6ers had to endure brown water from the taps, black mold on the walls, standing sewage in toilets, rotting food and alleged beatings of more than one J6er from the facility’s guards.

Like so many other January 6ers, Brandon was eventually offered a plea deal. Tempted, he couldn’t ethically rationalize feigning guilt for trespassing when law enforcement had practically given him a docent tour of the Capitol building. He refused the deal and pleaded “not guilty.”

On August of 2023, Brandon was finally allowed out of jail to attend his jury trial. He took the unusually bold step of representing himself. Unfortunately, the D.C. jury (taken from a pool almost entirely composed of government employees and otherwise uniformly Democrat) was unmoved by his arguments. On August 31^st, they found Brandon guilty of felony obstruction of an official proceeding, and felony entering and remaining in a restricted building, along with the three related misdemeanor offenses. 

Brandon remains in the DC Gulag as he awaits his final sentencing.  He’s proud that he and his fellow J6ers have been able to start letter-writing campaigns that have forced the jail facility to improve conditions for all its inmates.

As his mother writes, “Please consider helping Brandon with your much-needed donations. He is a patriotic American that loves his country and will always stand up for what he thinks is right!”