Two years later, KC Proud Boy still in jail — and still at center of Jan. 6 controversy

Update: A federal judge on Monday delayed again the case of William Chrestman.

Kansas City-area Proud Boy William Chrestman just keeps popping up in connection with Jan. 6.

In scenes of an angry mob outside the U.S. Capitol that day, wielding an ax handle and chanting “Whose house? Our house!” before breaching the building. On video clips shown last year during a prime time televised hearing of the special House panel investigating the attack.

And now, dressed in orange attire and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the “J6 Prison Choir” inside the District of Columbia jail. The song has been turned into a track called “Justice for All,” interspersed with the voice of former President Donald Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In early March, the single rose to No. 1 on the iTunes chart, and Trump used it on March 25 to open the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in Waco, Texas.

On Tuesday, Chrestman will be making another appearance. This one, in federal court.

After a string of continuances — the judge in his case was also handling the sedition trial of five Proud Boys leaders that just wrapped up after nearly four months — Chrestman is scheduled for a status conference in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The former sheet metal journeyman from Olathe is expected to attend the hearing via video conference from the jail.

Unlike the five other Proud Boys charged along with him, Chrestman is incarcerated, held without bond since his arrest on Feb. 11, 2021. Dubbed #axehole on Twitter, the Army veteran was captured on numerous videos alongside other Proud Boys during the insurrection, dressed in tactical gear, carrying an ax handle and stirring up the crowd with raucous chants.

Chrestman, 49, is among the Capitol riot defendants incarcerated the longest — even though he hasn’t been convicted. He and the roughly 20 other Jan. 6 inmates in the D.C. jail, many of them charged with serious crimes including assaulting police, are referred to as political prisoners by Trump and other GOP hard-liners.

During a CNN town hall with Trump on Wednesday night in New Hampshire, the former president called Jan. 6 “a beautiful day” and was asked whether if re-elected, he would pardon the Capitol rioters convicted of federal crimes.

“I am inclined to pardon many of them,” Trump said, drawing applause from the heavily Republican-leaning audience. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.”

The Justice Department declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.

Some Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, had harsh words for Trump.

Cheney, who was vice chairwoman of the House select committee that investigated the Capitol riot, narrated a 60-second ad that ran on CNN in New Hampshire before and during the town hall. The ad, funded by Cheney’s political action committee, showed clips of the pro-Trump mob invading the Capitol and attacking officers.

“Rather than accept defeat, he mobilized a mob to come to Washington and march on the Capitol,” Cheney said, adding that “Trump was warned repeatedly that his plans for January 6th were illegal.

“He didn’t care, and today he celebrates those who attacked our Capitol.”

On March 24, about a dozen Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and two Democrats went on a tour of what’s been dubbed the “D.C. Gulag” to examine conditions and visit the Jan. 6 defendants, who say they are being mistreated.

Afterward, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, one of the Democrats on the tour, told MSNBC that the inmates were allowed outside of their cells for much of the day and had tablets to watch movies and communicate with families and attorneys. He said the GOP lawmakers treated the inmates like celebrities, shaking their hands and slapping them on the back.

“It was completely shameful to see these are people that tried to overthrow our government, and they’re being treated like rock stars and heroes by Marjorie and others,” Garcia said.

As the lawmakers left, he later tweeted, the prisoners chanted “Let’s Go Brandon” — a slogan that has become conservative code for “f— Joe Biden.”

Greene described a much different scenario. She tweeted that the jail looked better than the last time she was there because it “had inmates/defendants clean, scrub, and paint the week before we got there so conditions would look good for our visit.” She also said that other inmates had educational and job opportunities that the “J6’ers” didn’t have and that while the inmates were now allowed to be out of their cells, they’d previously been in solitary confinement for months.

She said the Democrats who were on the tour “didn’t care about J6’ers complaints about the courts and judges and how they are being treated like political prisoners.”

“No, they just praised the jail after our tour,” she said. “Either they like jails and approve of the two-tiered justice system or are easily fooled by fresh paint.”

Chrestman was indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2021 along with three other Kansas City-area Proud Boys — Christopher Kuehne, of Olathe; Louis Colon, of Blue Springs; and Ryan Ashlock, of Gardner — and Arizona siblings Felicia and Cory Konold.

The indictment alleged that they “planned with each other, and with others known and unknown, to forcibly enter the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and to stop, delay, and hinder the Congressional proceeding occurring that day.”

Chrestman also was charged with threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer. All except Chrestman were released on personal recognizance bonds pending trial.

Colon pleaded guilty in April 2022 to one count of civil disorder, a felony, and awaits sentencing. Ashlock pleaded guilty to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced in November to 70 days in jail and 12 months of supervised release.

Kuehne’s case is ongoing, and like Chrestman, he is scheduled to be in court Tuesday. Last fall, after the judge granted his request to move out of state, he sold his house in a southern Olathe subdivision and relocated to Arizona.

The far-right Proud Boys have been at the forefront of the federal investigation into the attack.

Just this month, jurors found four leaders — including former national chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio — guilty of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, among other charges. A fifth was found guilty of charges that included assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and robbery involving government property.

A sixth defendant pleaded guilty on April 8, 2022, to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. Another Proud Boys leader pleaded guilty in October to seditious conspiracy and cooperated with the prosecution, testifying as the Justice Department’s star witness in the recent trial.

The organization of self-described “Western chauvinists” known for street-level violence and confrontations with anti-fascists at protests received national attention in September 2020 when, during the first presidential debate, Trump was asked if he was willing to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups.” Trump responded that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.”

At last Wednesday’s CNN town hall, Trump was asked whether the pardons he talked about granting if he was re-elected would include the four Proud Boys just convicted of seditious conspiracy.

His response: “I don’t know. I’d have to look at their case. But I will say in Washington, D.C., you cannot get a fair trial. You cannot.”

Chrestman’s mother doesn’t see much chance her son will get out of jail any time soon unless Trump pardons him. In an April 14 interview on The Political Prisoner Podcast, a show produced by Look Ahead America, Susan Moser said his situation has been “absolutely horrendous.”

She noted that after Chrestman’s arrest in 2021, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas City, Kansas, decided to grant him bond. But before he could be released, a judge in Washington, D.C., reversed the Kansas judge’s decision and ordered him to be held without bond until his trial.

“We were all ready to go down there, post his bail, get him out,” Moser said. “And a judge in D.C. overrode it, and he was whisked away.”

Moser acknowledged that Chrestman was a Proud Boy but said he did nothing wrong on Jan. 6.

“He went there to listen to President Trump speak — very patriotic,” she said. “We all, as well as him, were devastated by the election results...He got kind of caught up with the crowd and, you know, walked to the Capitol.

“He broke no windows, no doors, he didn’t do any damage. He didn’t hurt anybody, he just walked in. And because he was a Proud Boy, they targeted him. Now, it’s not illegal to be a Proud Boy, you know. I mean, he was a Boy Scout. Is it illegal to be a Boy Scout?”

But U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said in a July 2021 court hearing that “Mr. Chrestman was much more — much, much more — than someone who merely cheered on the violence or who entered the Capitol after others cleared the way.”

Kelly denied Chrestman’s request to be released from custody, going through a laundry list of Chrestman’s alleged actions on the day of the riot that he said were captured by dozens of photos and videos. The actions, Kelly said, included Chrestman wielding an ax handle, encouraging the crowd to storm the Capitol and confronting law enforcement, telling an officer that “You shoot and I’ll take your f------ ass out!”

“In a world in which January 6 has passed but yet the notion in our politics that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and is still a live issue, those statements do not reflect someone for whom the fight is over...they reflect someone who is focused on the future and for whom the fight continues,” Kelly said.

On the April podcast, Susan Moser praised Greene and others who she said have supported the Jan. 6 defendants.

Every Friday night, Moser said, supporters hold a vigil outside the D.C. jail. When she visited Chrestman in February, she attended the vigil.

“The detainees, they all get together every night at nine o’clock and they say the Lord’s Prayer and they sing the national anthem,” she said. “So everyone at the vigil at nine o’clock gathers in a circle. They say the Lord’s Prayer and they sing the national anthem. I was in tears. I was a complete mess, I was so touched.”

Moser said her son told her he would not agree to any plea deals with the government.

“If they take the plea deal, they have to confess to the horrible crimes they’re accusing them of and write a statement that they did it at President Trump’s urging,” she said. “Billy said absolutely no way is he doing that...He said no, he did not go there at the urging of President Trump.”

But after Chrestman’s arrest in February 2021, his federal public defenders argued that he should be released on bond because he was not a danger to his community and that Trump — not the rioters — was responsible for the Capitol breach. (He has since retained new counsel.)

“It is an astounding thing to imagine storming the United States Capitol with sticks and flags and bear spray, arrayed against armed and highly trained law enforcement,” his public defenders wrote in a court filing. “Only someone who thought that they had an official endorsement would even attempt such a thing.

“And a Proud Boy who had been paying attention would very much believe he did.”

That endorsement, Chrestman’s defense contended, came from Trump.