‘They fought for freedom’: the nightly vigil to sanctify the January 6 rioters

On DC’s ‘Freedom Corner’, activists are convinced the January 6 attackers are political prisoners persecuted by the government

The clock had just struck 9pm when Jeff Sabol, a Colorado man accused of dragging a police officer down a flight of stairs at the US Capitol on January 6 and beating him, placed a call from inside Washington’s jail.

Dozens of yards and several layers of concrete and razor wire away, on E Street Southeast, Tommy Tatum, a hulking Mississippian who had been present at the Capitol on January 6 but not arrested, stood with a microphone in one hand and a cellphone in the other.