Guest post by Patriot Legal Defense
It was a thunderclap of justice, a moment that shook the heavens, when President Donald Trump, with the stroke of a pen, pardoned the January 6 prisoners in one bold, unprecedented sweep.
Patriots, locked away for nearly four years, walked free – vindicated, but broken.
Many emerged to find nothing left: no homes, no jobs, no families.
The state-run media, acting as the Democrat Party’s propaganda arm, branded them terrorists, insurrectionists, white supremacists – labels that turned neighbors into enemies and spouses into strangers.
These men and women, who stood against what they believed was a stolen election, now face a society that shuns them, leaving many of them homeless, unemployable, and fighting to piece together shattered lives.
One such patriot’s life, Chris Quaglin, has been torn apart by the federal government, yet his resolve to reunite with his son burns brighter than ever.
Quaglin, once a skilled electrician running multimillion-dollar projects, now sleeps on a couch in the home of fellow pardoned January 6er Adam and Beth Villarreal in Washington, D.C’s Homeland House.
Without their generosity, he’d be on the streets, his truck and a few garbage bags of clothes his only possessions.
Quaglin has applied for dozens of jobs, but employers, spooked by a Google search painting him as an “insurrectionist,” won’t touch him.
His plan to fund a J6 tour—raising awareness about the political persecution he and over 1,500 others endured for protesting the 2020 election—has faltered, with recent merchandise sales netting just $500 of a $5,000 goal.
Flags holding up after 12 hours driving! Buy yours at https://t.co/k21rqecSCf!#january6thwasaninsidejob pic.twitter.com/5BJW9k4wCS
— Chris Quaglin J6tour.com (@j6tour) June 13, 2025
Betrayed even by another J6er who allegedly swindled him out of $3,500 for T-shirts, Quaglin’s struggle is a stark reminder of the cost of standing with President Trump.
But the heart of Quaglin’s fight lies in a deeply personal battle: to regain custody of his son, Nathan, who was just two months old when the FBI surrounded their New Jersey home.
In year two of his incarceration, Quaglin’s wife filed for divorce, stripped him of parental rights, and now blocks him from seeing Nathan.
“The very first day, when I got out, I sent her one text message, and I said, I want to hold Nathan for his fourth birthday. She immediately responded with filing a temporary restraining order,” Quaglin told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview.
“This custody battle has already cost $15,000 with legal fees mounting. It could run up to a $40,000 to $50,00 fight. I am fighting with everything I have to be with my son. I have already paid $250,000 in legal bills for January 6th.”
The restraining order, filed after a single plea to see his son, underscores the personal devastation Quaglin faces.
He has had only one in-person visit with Nathan and a handful of video calls while in jail. The video visits were came to an end when he was transferred to D.C. detention, where video visitation was not permitted.
Adding to the outrage, Quaglin alleges the termination of his unborn daughter during IVF, a loss that compounds his grief.
“I deserve to be my son’s father,” he insists, his words a raw plea for justice.
The job market has been a brick wall for Quaglin, his reputation poisoned by media narratives.
“The reality is that this money isn’t for me to start living. I’ve been trying to get work. I’ve landed some part time stuff. But prospective employers Google me, and my name has been so slandered that no one really wants to be associated with it. The big companies will not touch me,” he explains. “I’m going to have no choice but to apply for food stamps.”
***Please support Chris Quaglin’s legal fund here***
Employers ask, “Where have you been for four years?”
He tries to dodge: “I said, Oh, well, I took some time off. And then, they just never called me back.”
The lies that haunt him— claims he assaulted police — are, he says, provably false.
“When they Google me and you have 10 pages of negative articles about how I assaulted cops and how I hurt cops – then they just stay away. The media reports are all demonstrable lies, we can prove that those are lies.”
Quaglin’s account of January 6 paints a different picture, one of provocation and coercion.
“After I was assaulted, I pushed back. I was attacked first. I was hit multiple times in the head with a baton. That was the first assault. After Josh Black was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, and I was pushed from behind towards the cop by admitted Antifa member Landon Copeland,” he says, pointing to evidence at 1000DaysOfTerror.com.
Most shocking, he claims the FBI tried to force him to implicate Trump via Roger Stone, of he had never met or had contact with: “They said they will give me no charges if I will help indict Donald Trump, basically through Roger Stone.”
Refusing, Quaglin faced the full weight of the system, a move that infuriates supporters who see it as political retribution.
The financial and emotional toll is staggering. Quaglin’s divorce was a travesty, timed to cripple him.
“The government moved me four days before my divorce hearing and literally stripped my bank account,” he says. “They stripped me of donations raised on my GiveSendGo legal fund. They stripped my house from me. They undervalued my house by $250,000, and right now I’m paying $500 a week in child support for my son that I cannot see.”
Left with nothing but his truck, he estimates the government cost him at least $1,000,000 in assets and lost pay.
The mainstream media’s role in Quaglin’s plight cannot be overstated.
Outlets like NBC News branded him a “Donald Trump supporter who attacked officers during the Jan. 6 attack,” quoting prosecutors who called him “one of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters” who “viciously assaulted numerous officers.”
The New York Times reported he “rushed the police and grabbed an officer by the neck,” alleging he used a stolen riot shield and chemical irritant.
The Associated Press claimed he “repeatedly attacked police officers” and was convicted of “six separate assaults.”
These reports, heavily reliant on prosecutorial narratives, omitted the facts that can be seen in footage of the events, showing Quaglin was attacked by police first, and the alleged FBI coercion, fueling a public perception that has left him unemployable.
#LoveMail pic.twitter.com/SsEKwmFIXu
— Chris Quaglin J6tour.com (@j6tour) June 16, 2025
The media’s portrayal is typical of mainstream media propaganda’s bid to smear Trump supporters to keep them down.
While Quaglin and other pardoned J6ers have no criminal records post-pardon, their names are plastered across the internet with labels like “insurrectionist” and “terrorist.”
This digital scarlet letter mirrors the cycle of recidivism seen in broader incarceration trends.
Studies show the recidivism rate in the United States is largely attributed to the struggle prisoners face upon release—they often resort to criminal activity when they can’t find work—70% are rearrested within five years, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
J6ers face a unique twist: their pardons clear their records, but the media’s relentless vilification ensures employers see them as toxic, pushing them toward poverty and desperation. Quaglin’s reliance on food stamps and a friend’s couch underscores this trap, one set not by their actions but by a narrative designed to punish dissent.
Quaglin’s prison ordeal was itself punitive, with 15 transfers across facilities like New Jersey, Oklahoma, and D.C.
“They purposely moved me for three and a half years so that they just to screw with me,” he says, noting a New Jersey facility would have allowed weekly visits with Nathan, potentially saving his marriage.
Legal battles have drained him—$30,000 on the divorce, $4,000 on truck upkeep—and he plans to sue for wrongful arrest and prison mistreatment.
“I’m intending to sue about the fact that I almost died in prison – I was being starved to death,” he says, his resolve unshaken.
Chris Quaglin is a man who’s been through hell—not for robbing banks or peddling drugs, but for standing up for what he believed, for waving the flag of freedom on January 6.
The deep state, the media, the Democrat machine—they’ve stripped him of his home, his savings, his family, and his good name.
But they can’t strip his love for his son, Nathan, or his right to be a father.
This is America, folks, and in America, we don’t let our patriots drown in the swamp.
***Please support Chris Quaglin’s legal fund here***
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The post Pardoned but Punished: J6 Father Faces Homelessness in Custody War By Patriot Legal Defense appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.