J6ers demand $1 million each over government 'trap' to create 'appearance of a riot'

Twelve Jan. 6 defendants sued the federal government Friday for $1 million each, claiming the Capitol riot was a government "trap" designed to create the "appearance of a riot."

The complaint, filed in federal court in Washington under a law that allows citizens to sue the government for wrongful acts of its employees, names 12 plaintiffs whose Jan. 6 prosecutions ended in pardons, acquittals, or dismissals.

The filing landed three days after a federal judge dismissed the last Jan. 6 criminal case at the urging of President Donald Trump's Justice Department, saying he did so "reluctantly" — the same case that once put one of the 12 plaintiffs behind bars for more than four years.

The suit claims the government engineered the Capitol breach months before it happened, according to the complaint filed by the Ticktin Law Group.

"Long before January 6th, in fact, going back at least to September of 2020," the filing says, conspirators held Zoom meetings and plotted "to turn a peaceful protest of the conservative J6ers...into the appearance of a riot."

"Those seditionists...actually plotted to break some of the windows of the Capitol Building so that their compatriots and foreign participants would enter the Capitol Building to unlock and open the doors of the Capitol so that the anticipated protestors outside would be herded into the Capitol Building," the complaint says.

The filing names a specific window-breaker — never publicly identified — as the trigger man, the complaint says.

"Another never-identified instigator, wearing a red 'MAGA' cap with a price tag still affixed, broke and smashed the first window of the Capitol on the West side, to allow infiltrators to climb through the windows," it says.

"The plan was a trap to identify and destroy the tip of the spear of opposition to the election rigging," the filing says. "The psy-op was genius."

The suit repeatedly cites the pardons Trump provided to January 6 defendants when he took office in 2025.

One of the 12 plaintiffs, Oath Keepers member Roberto Minuta, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 54 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. Trump commuted his sentence on Jan. 20, 2025, and his convictions were wiped away when Mehta dismissed the final Jan. 6 case Tuesday at the Justice Department's request.

Writing in his dismissal order, Mehta expressed sharp disagreement with the outcome.

"Today's epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of presidential power — to buckle," Mehta wrote.

The complaint also directly challenges the government's account of officer injuries, the filing says.

"The most serious injury to any officer was a broken finger. The most common injury was 'pain.' No officers died as a result of injuries from J6," it says.

"That book is now closed," Mehta wrote Tuesday. Three days later, the plaintiffs opened a new one.