Donald Trump’s January 6 Choir Comes Back To Haunt Him

Donald Trump’s continued glorification of men jailed for the January 6 Capitol riot is being used by prosecutors to argue that the former president believes in rebellion and uprisings.

A prison recording entitled “Justice For All” features January 6 prisoners singing the national anthem, intercut with Trump reciting the pledge of allegiance.

“Justice For All” by the “January 6 Choir,” went to Number 1 on the iTunes download chart and has been played at Trump rallies across the country.

That, according to Department of Justice special prosecutor, Jack Smith, is evidence that Trump is glorifying the January 6 attack and using it to win support for his 2024 presidential campaign.

Supporters of Donald Trump clash with police and security forces as they try to storm the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Federal prosecutors say that Trump is continuing to glorify the attack in campaign rallies. Brent Stirton/Getty Images

In a filing before a Washington D.C. federal court this week, Smith noted recent Trump comments at a campaign rally in which he praised the choir.

“Of the January 6 Choir, the defendant told the crowd, “[O]ur people love those people, they love those people,” Smith noted.

“In the years since January 6, despite his knowledge of the violent actions at the Capitol, the defendant has publicly praised and defended rioters and their conduct,” Smith wrote.

Smith was replying to a motion by Trump’s lawyers in Washington D.C. to have Trump’s election interference case thrown out, based on “selective and vindictive prosecution” by Smith and his team.

The use of the choir to show Trump’s support for the January 6 riot opens up the possibility that it will be used as evidence when Trump goes on trial next year.

Newsweek sought email comment on Wednesday morning from Trump’s legal team and from the office of special counsel Jack Smith.

Judge Tanya Chutkan has yet to rule on Trump’s motion and the case is set to go to trial in March.

A federal grand jury in August indicted Trump on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. Smith has indicted Trump for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, including attempts to submit false slates of pro-Trump electors from swing states he lost to the Electoral College.

The charges also refer to the former president’s activities surrounding the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol. Smith argues in his 45-page indictment against Trump that the former president repeatedly attempted to remain in power despite losing to President Joe Biden in 2020, including by inciting the occupation of the Capitol building by his supporters while Congress was officially certifying Biden’s victory.

Trump maintains his innocence, accusing prosecutors of targeting him for political purposes. He pleaded not guilty in this case, as he did in his three other criminal cases.

Trump saluted the American flag to the sound of the January 6 choir at a rally in Houston, Texas, last week. After the recording had finished, Trump told the cheering crowd: “You know, I call them the J6 hostages. Not prisoners, I call them the hostages. It’s a shame.”

He then boasted to the crowd about how the recording had knocked Taylor Swift and Mylie Cyrus from the number 1 spot and stayed number 1 “for months.”

The January 6 choir’s singing of the national anthem was recorded over a prison phone line and spliced with Trump’s pledge of allegiance recital to create the song “Justice for All,” which is used to raise funds for the prisoners’ families.

When it was played at a Trump rally in Waco, Texas, in April, images of Capitol rioters flashed behind the former president on a big screen.

Federico Finchelstein, chair of the history department at the liberal-leaning New School for Social Research in New York City, said that Trump’s support for the choir shows that he is trying to mythologize the January 6 attack.

“I think this is a key part of what Trump is doing regarding the glorification of his coup attempt. The idea is to turn a riot into what it was not. This Trumpist myth of 1/6 invents a battle with heroes and fallen soldiers. It is a wannabe fascist fantasy spread to songs and other rituals,” he told Newsweek.

“In fact, it was an illegal coup attempt to overturn the results of the election. Trump’s militarization of politics, including explicit forms of paramilitarism, is what makes him so close to fascism,” Finchelstein added.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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