Support J6 Prisoner Charles Bradford Smith

His real crime? Well, it sure wasn't what he did on January 6th.

Until January 6th, 2021, Charles, age 24, had never been in any kind of trouble. Not even a traffic violation. But in consequence of his participation in the J6 protest, he is now is serving a sentence of 41 months in federal prison.

What terrible crime did he commit on January 6th? Per the DOJ website, the “defendant participated in pushing a large metal sign frame into officers attempting to secure the capitol grounds.” That’s the main crime highlighted at the top of the page about Charles Bradford Smith. What does that really mean? According to his mother, he only touched the sign for about seven seconds as it went by him and the sign was never used to injure anyone. Even the prosecution questioned whether this charge made any sense.

The DOJ website also lists a bunch of comments Charles made on Facebook about “storming the Capitol” and taking pride in having disrupted the inaugural proceedings. OK, he made some incendiary comments in an excited moment.

But did he actually storm the Capitol? No, he never even went inside the building. Did he assault anyone? No. But the comments alone, said the DOJ, constituted “conspiracy.”

And for that, they took forty-one months of his young life. He is five months into his sentence. Thirty-six months left to go.

Contrast his sentence with those of people supporting Democrat-approved causes: Left-wing lawyer Urooj Rahman threw a molotov cocktail into a police car; her sentence was 15 months. Antifa activist David Campbell brutally beat a 56-year-old Trump supporter; his sentence was 18 months. Antifa activist Thomas “Tas” Alexander Starks attacked the office of Republican Senator John Hoeven with an axe; he was sentenced to probation and a fine of $2,784, and incredibly the FBI returned to him his axe.

For that matter, of the thousands arrested during the explosive George Floyd riots, more than 90% of cases were simply dropped or dismissed. If Charles Bradford Smith had carried out exactly the same actions and written the same words during those riots, very likely nothing at all would have happened to him. Those riots were treated differently because they were in support of a different team.

The lengthy sentence given to Charles Bradford Smith is wildly disproportionate and unjust, and he should be freed. But that will likely not happen, at least for a long time. Meanwhile you can help. His mother has set up a GiveSendGo to accept donations to help pay for his monthly prison commissary, his legal bills, and his mother’s travel expenses to visit him.

Anything you do, even a small donation, will help because it will let him know something very likely vitally important to him right now: that he is not alone and not forgotten.

UPDATE: Charles’ mother writes on his GiveSendGo page that he has been released from prison. He’s not yet entirely free, as he still has to serve some time in a halfway house, but at least he’s not in a cell now.