Updated January 25, 2025 at 06:00 AM ET
Taylor James Johnatakis started Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, in federal prison.
A jury convicted the Washington State man of three felonies, including "assaulting, resisting or impeding" officers, during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
He and his fellow inmates watched television as President Trump took an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution." Hours later, Johnatakis as Trump signed pardons for 1,500 people involved in Jan. 6.
"I thought, 'I'm definitely on that list," Johnatakis said. Prison guards soon confirmed his guess.
By the end of the day on Monday, a day he started behind bars, he walked out of prison to find his wife waiting for him.
Some of the people freed Monday have spoken of retribution, but Johnatakis took a different approach. Asked in an NPR interview if he viewed the pardon as vindication or simply relief, he said, "I see it as relief … I've never looked for vindication."
His pardon after 14 months in prison was an occasion to review just what the evidence showed, and to ask how one pardoned man views his newfound freedom.
Johnatakis does not deny his actions on that day, though he argued they were less serious than his trial established.
He pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty on all charges. A judge sentenced him to about seven years, one of the longer sentences connected with the attack, saying Johnatakis was "not an inherently bad person," but "in any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers. Mr. Johnatakis was a leader. He knew what he was doing that day."
In 2021, Johnatakis was a septic systems installer, a father of five, and politically active. He traveled across the country to attend the Jan. 6 rally–and brought a bullhorn.
Body cam video shows him using the bullhorn while coordinating people to push on a police barricade. They lifted it to pass underneath and fought officers on the other side. Court records say he grabbed an officer's arm, and joined a melee with officers who later testified against him, according to his sentencing document:
"Officer Gonzalez said that during the assault, he felt like he had suffered a 'serious injury' and perhaps even broken his leg … Another officer who was standing alongside this officer, Officer Marc D'Avignon, thought he was going to die."
Court records also say Johnatakis filmed himself in front of the Capitol, saying that if the mob had actually been able to storm the Capitol and see individual members of Congress, "We probably would have murdered a few of them."
At sentencing, the judge noted that Johnatakis had accepted responsibility for his actions, but also changed his story at times and seemed to minimize his role in the event
Johnatakis insists that his part of the demonstration had simply gotten out of hand. "I regret encouraging people to touch the gate," he said, referring to a bicycle rack that police had installed as a barricade. "I did not encourage violence. I did not view my actions as that I still don't." He admitted to using "hyperbolic" language in social media posts.
At the same time, he acknowledged that his actions had been "dumb," and said that when he chose to conduct his own defense at trial, "My defense was: 'I apologize.'
Would he mobilize again if Trump asked him to?
"No, no, absolutely not," he said, laughing. "I believe in the First Amendment and our right to assemble and to protest and to redress our grievances. I believe in all of that. I don't think Donald Trump was trying to call for Jan. 6 violence and things like that. That's my opinion. But I will not be traveling across the country to be attending anybody's protests."
Johnatakis told NPR that he felt like his fight was lost on Jan. 20, 2021, when former President Joe Biden took the oath of office.
"America matters too much. And we can endure four years of Joe Biden just like we did, right or wrong, whether you liked it or not, right? Some people are going to have to now endure four years of Donald Trump," Johnatakis said. "That's just the way it works."
Johnatakis said that on Jan. 6, he favored pressuring Congress to reject some of the state results from the 2020 election, delaying the certification of Joe Biden's election win in a bid to keep the defeated President Trump in power. This was the idea that then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to entertain, and that the vast majority of Congress rejected, as an unconstitutional scheme to deny the vote of the people.
Johatakis says he now accepts that Congress was within its right to reject the strategy, and that he considered the matter closed.
"That's their prerogative, he said. "We elect them to go to Washington and make those hard decisions. So who am I to stand in the way of the people?"
A Jan. 6 investigator worries pardons encourage more political violence
Tim Heaphy, the lead investigator of the House Jan. 6 committee, told NPR that he fears what Trump's pardons mean going forward.
"If you accept the premise that criminal sanctions deter criminal conduct, then it's a short step that the excuse of criminal behavior through these pardons actually encourages criminal behavior," Heaphy told NPR.
He also said no one prosecuted for the Jan. 6 attack was targeted strictly for their political beliefs.
"Everyone from the least culpable misdemeanor to the most culpable felons have been convicted for actions taken, things that they did, not things that they said," Heaphy continued.
In the hours and days after Trump issued the pardons, some convicted in the Jan. 6 attack have expressed remorse, others have denied their pardon, while others have taken more aggressive stances.
Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the extremist group Proud Boys serving a 22-year sentence over seditious conspiracy acts tied to Jan. 6, told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' show that "the people who did this, they need to feel the heat," the Associated Press reports.
Tarrio was not actually at the Capitol. He was convicted for directing Proud Boys members during the Jan. 6 attack.
He continued: "We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did."
NPR investigations correspondent Tom Dreisbach and Morning Edition digital editor Obed Manuel contributed.
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