United States Army Sergeant Joseph Lino Padilla

There are many stories about January 6 that fall by the wayside.

Most defendants remain nameless, faceless hostages. Real Americans have been rendered as caricatures as a way of pigeonholing them and glossing over the real experiences of that complicated day.

TAKING OATHS

Joseph Lino Padilla, or Sergeant Padilla, is a United States Army veteran. He served two tours of duty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2006 to 2010. During this time he worked on stopping the detonation of improvised explosive devices (IED’s) among other duties. He’ll never brag about his service, but having spent years in jail with him and hearing his stories, he’s seen a lot that most Americans are fortunate enough to not have.

Jose Padilla served years in Iraq

Following two combat tours overseas, Sergeant Padilla was classified as “totally and permanently disabled” due to his service. Sergeant Padilla came home with degenerative joint disease in his lower back, burn pit-induced chronic sinusitis, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

While he may have been known primarily as ‘Sergeant Padilla’ in the Army, and we may have come to simply know him as ‘Padilla’ in the DC jail, his loving wife and three boys will always know him as ‘Jose’ and ‘Dad.’

** Please donate to the Padilla recovery fund here.

Jose Padilla had very humble beginnings. He grew up in poverty and in a broken home. Rather than limiting him, his upbringing made him into the most dedicated husband and father I have ever known in my three decades on this Earth. Jose Padilla is a man who would sacrifice everything he has in him for those he loves. Sadly, he would have to.

Sergeant Padilla with wife (left) and son (right)

Like many, Sergeant Jose Padilla questioned the 2020 election. On January 6 he went to Washington, DC, to see his first Trump rally. Wearing his trademark blue jacket, he would in fact walk into an entrapment scheme, with no idea what was coming his way.

Jose Padilla in trademark blue jacket

REMEMBERING OATHS

I was right there. I have the wounds to prove it. – Testimony by Jose Padilla on the TheDonald forum

Padilla arrived on the Capitol West Terrace after the perimeter was already taken down during the initial Capitol grounds breaches. Expecting a simple protest, he would instead witness police brutality and excessive force against unarmed protestors.

This outrageous conduct by law enforcement would set off something within him most prior service Americans experienced that day. No man who takes an oath to protect his people feels apathy watching others break their oath to do the same.

Jose repeatedly attempted to peacefully speak with officers about their conduct and was shoved in response. He took up his frustration with a “white-shirt” (commanding officer) Captain, saying “You know what you’re doing is wrong.” Video shows that Padilla was initially able to block an incoming cheap shot from another officer, only for Padilla to respond by yelling at that officer not to hit him.

As Padilla proceeded to try to talk to the Captain about keeping his oath, again he was struck with another cheap shot by the adjacent officer. A frustrated Padilla responded to being hit with, “What about YOUR fucking oath?”

The Captain disappeared, a bigger MPD officer took his place, and Padilla clearly stated again on Metro PD body cameras that his goal was talking to the police (not insurrection). “Did your Captain have to run off and call you to help him, because he’s afraid of me, for TALKING to him?” 

For those who don’t understand how people became “violent” on January 6, consider how things escalated with Jose Padilla. An Iraq War vet, Padilla believed officers at the Capitol were not upholding their oaths by attacking protestors for objecting to a rigged election.

Jose… pic.twitter.com/Mhkcy8Awxa

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) March 6, 2025

** Please donate to the Padilla recovery fund here.

Instead of de-escalating the situation, cops beat Jose to the point he blacked out more than once. Prosecutors portrayed Padilla as a criminal for pushing on part of the bike rack perimeter police assembled piecemeal on the West Terrace.

While there are points where Padilla’s hands are on the bike rack perimeter, the cops were standing guard at, and while there are parts where this leads to him pushing forward, it’s also clear from various camera angles that Jose had to brace himself using this fencing so he could even stand up after being beaten. Different angles clearly show Jose holding himself up with his head tilted down.

I was beaten unconscious twice, sprayed more times than I care to count, received strikes from batons that should have been lethal (Multiple temple and carotid strikes) except that God was on my side.

Police used multiple head strikes on Jose with their riot batons, ganged up on him, and tossed him away like a ragdoll. There’s a point where he’s hanging on, with one arm, barely standing, after being beaten over the head with life-threatening blows. Other angles in other videos show Padilla barely able to stay conscious, his face extremely red from the attacks, having to sit down on steps to recover from his injuries, etc.

Jose Padilla recovering on West Terrace steps after being attacked by police

The DOJ also falsely accused Padilla of using a giant Trump sign as a weapon against police. Even Judge Bates, at trial, found Jose not guilty of this fake assault. In fact, Jose was recovering from being beaten, trying to avoid this giant sign hitting himself, and was actually trying to position the sign upward – because it was a sign.

They were Patriots who were trying to restore the Republic after being attacked by cops, and who struck first.

Curiously, this giant Trump sign was touched by many January 6 defendants who would be charged with assault… except for Ray Epps. The government acknowledged that Ray Epps engaged in felonious activity but only charged him with misdemeanors for which he was sentenced to probation. The DOJ charged Jose with multiple felonies and sought a sentence of 171 months or 14 years!

DC GULAG

Jose Padilla’s arrest after January 6

Jose would be turned in to the feds like all of us. Despite Jose having been a victim of excessive force by police on January 6, and having stated clearly that the actions of protestors on January 6 were in retaliation after having been attacked (and NOT in the pursuit of insurrection), the Padilla home was raided by numerous armed government agents with armored vehicles.

An unarmed Jose Padilla was paraded through the street in restraints and half-naked. He would then be taken to jail and eventually found his way to the Washington, DC, Department of Corrections facility (aka the “DC Gulag”), where he would be denied bond by a federal judge and be forced to rot in solitary confinement alongside myself and a dozen other inmates.

** Please donate to the Padilla recovery fund here.

Padilla spent two and a half years in the DC jail and denied basic civil rights, access to his family, religious services, basic nutrition, and so on. The jail deprived inmates of civil rights on the basis of “stopping Covid” but in reality out of a punitive desire to break January 6 inmates. This treatment continued well into DC lifting Covid restrictions on the remaining jail population (January 6 inmates having been segregated into a separate wing dubbed the “Patriot Pod” which was in reality an mental asylum).

Retaliation and targeting of inmates for racial and political reasons was also rampant. I recall on one occasion a DC jail guard called Jose a “Pussy-ass cracker.” Officers allegedly even stole his mail in violation of federal law. Even worse than the guards was some of the inmates. Jose was himself a former correctional officer and knew how to conduct himself in a penal environment, unlike others who targeted him.

Some informants inside the jail, in order to throw others off their trail, targeted Jose by spreading rumors of him being a fed. This can be a death sentence in the wrong prison, especially for someone who worked in corrections prior. Division and factionalism inside the DC jail led Padilla, an introvert by nature, to withdraw even further into his own psyche. Similar experiences and a similar mindset led to me bonding with Jose.

Guy Reffitt (left) and Jose Padilla w/ book (right) in DC Gulag

Jose was in fact possibly the most educated and intelligent individual to ever live amongst us in the DC Gulag. Classical philosophy, Babylonian archeology – there was no clear ceiling to Jose’s knowledge. He, Kelly Meggs and I would often solve crossword puzzles together to pass the little time we had out of our cells.

This brilliance was one of the greatest tools we had inside the Gulag as Padilla was a master at researching case law. Many people feigned being jailhouse lawyers, but he spent endless hours using the very limited FastCase system provided to us (after many months of being denied a law library).

https://t.co/Tht2ENxHJx
A friendly reminder that the federal judges overseeing January 6 cases are not merely wrong on the law. They are colluding with the DOJ to target President Trump and his supporters. It’s not a theory. And it’s not based purely on their continued use of the… https://t.co/mE6qySkNg5 pic.twitter.com/uIApVKOBaD

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) April 4, 2024

What many of us were to video analysis, Jose was to researching the law. Even Jose’s lawyers were impressed with his research. He in fact made a great case on selective prosecution which was regrettably and predictably ignored by the court.

The thing that most stood out about Jose while incarcerated together in DC was not his intelligence but his character. Padilla was a devoted husband and father who called his wife and kids three times a day if possible. The greatest constant for stability in his life after military service was his family and it was stripped from him. Most of Padilla’s time in DC was as a pretrial detainee, not as a convict, and this separation imposed another layer of psychological torture on top of the solitary confinement and jailhouse retaliation.

** Please donate to the Padilla recovery fund here.

While Jose was in my eyes justified in his righteous indignation on January 6, Jose was incredibly humbled by his captivity and showed great remorse knowing that his captivity meant pain for his family. He was never a man motivated by greed or envy, only by his need to provide his family the stability he never knew in his formative years. Jose, a devout Seventh Day Adventist, was also humble before the Lord, and always feared allowing his status as a political prisoner to lead him to hubris instead of self-reflection.

Mr. Padilla reports that his upbringing combined with his combat experience in the Army has made him an introvert who struggles with loud noise, chaos, and large groups; all of which are largely unavoidable in prison. He further states that he is constantly on the verge of tears and looks forward to receiving his evening medications in the hopes he will fall into a deep sleep just to gain some peace. – Jose Padilla’s pre-sentencing report

Jose’s life reflects everything great about America. A man who started without much but spent life in the service of things greater than himself – God, country, and family. And yet, after being convicted at trial, Sergeant Jose Padilla was sentenced to 78 months – 6.5 years – for the crime of being beaten by law enforcement after standing up for his oath, the Constitution, and his fellow Americans. Padilla didn’t have the worst judge among the cadre of partisan hacks to oversee January 6 show trials, but nonetheless the torture Jose endured in the DC Gulag for over two years was set to continue in federal prison.

PRISON TO FREEDOM

While prison probably provided some relief to someone like Jose, myself and others (longing to move on from the hellhole of the Gulag), the Bureau of Prisons created some new complications. The first is that Jose was placed on a prison yard where the majority of inmates were child sex offenders, which most would consider a special kind of Hell to find oneself in. The more pressing concern was that, after being separated from his family for years, visitation was still extremely difficult because the feds moved him all the way up to Michigan and his family was located in Tennessee.

While in some regards the worst of his incarceration was probably behind him, prison is still prison, and it would still be over a year before President Trump took back the White House and pardoned him. Fortunately, President Trump is a man of his word, and he did pardon Jose.

President Trump w/ sons of Jose Padilla, Jorden Mink & Rachel Powell at Patriot Freedom Project event at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey

Even before pardons came, President Trump comforted the children of defendants like Jose Padilla, Jorden Mink, Rachel Powell, etc. at several Patriot Freedom Project events. Padilla was never forgotten.

** Please donate to the Padilla recovery fund here.

Jose and I went to different prisons after the DC Gulag. I missed having an academic peer and some of the best conversations I could’ve asked for in such a miserable environment. On the occasions I tried sending Jose reading material after I got out of prison he never received anything from the mailroom.

After two years of separation however we finally reconnected. Jose allowed me to interview him about his story, from start to finish, which you can listen to here:

Now that the January 6 defendants are no longer subject to probation or supervised release, we can speak freely with each other.

The patriots who languished behind bars in the DC Gulag have been hastily reconnecting. With each day, more and more sign on to tell their story.

What really happened on January 6, how they were smeared by the feds and media, and what they suffered through while locked up, and much more.

My phone has been on fire today as I reconnected with many of the men I was incarcerated with after January 6. And I’m now prepared to unveil a project that has been simmering in my head some time.

For 3 years after January 6, as I and other J6 political prisoners languished… pic.twitter.com/mForP3n8Ky

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) December 26, 2024

These interviews, along with hundreds of pages of primary documents, will form the basis for a multi-volume history series, Artifice and Betrayal: The History of the DC Gulag.

Now that their voices have been restored, the defendants will be the ones to write the authoritative history of January 6 and the lawfare that followed, not the prosecutors and media.

REBUILDING

A bit late, but thank you all for your support during these trying times. pic.twitter.com/tqGOhEacPA

— Jose Padilla (@Ghost_Soul_J6er) January 26, 2025

The past four years haven’t broken Jose. Despite the attempts to smear him and destroy his family, Jose endured more than most men could bear. He gazed into the abyss, and the abyss blinked. But being released from captivity after all this time hasn’t been easy. He’s had to adjust like every political prisoner. I assure you it’s not a quick transition.

Having spent the last four years in federal detention and prison prior to receiving my pardon on Jan 20th 2025, my family finances have been devastated and we are down to 1 vehicle that is on its last leg. – Jose

Sergeant Jose Padilla is a disabled veteran with a family of five to support.

While incarcerated he lost access to his VA benefits and disability payments and his wife struggled with multiple jobs to support their sons.

They lost their home, are about to lose their car, and are in desperate need of help rebuilding their lives after four years of dystopian oppression.

Please consider helping Jose and his family HERE. After everything Jose has sacrificed for this country he deserves better than to be forgotten.

The post SERGEANT JOSE PADILLA – WAR HERO: Iraq Veteran Brutally Assaulted by Metro Police on January 6 in Need of Support After Four Years in Prison appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Vicky