This week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was expected to serve as an informal homecoming for those granted clemency in President Donald Trump’s near-blanket pardoning of people charged or convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
“The J6ers are here at CPAC,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist and nationalist populist, said Thursday during his remarks to raucous cheers from attendees.
But some were initially denied entrance to the conference on Wednesday, including Richard Barnett, whose photograph — feet propped on a desk inside then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office — became one of the most enduring images of the riot.
“I am considered a national hero,” Barnett said in a video he posted to social media after he was turned away from CPAC. “I’m a J6er and I have an unlimited, unconditional presidential pardon from President Trump,” he continued. “I went when he called me, I stood up. I spent all this time in prison for my country.”
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was also initially denied entry.
“I have no idea what the rationale is,” he said in a video posted on social media, “there’s a two-tier system still, on the conservative side too, if you’re a disfavored patriot you’re purged by the left and you’re purged by the right.”
As a vocal contingent of Rhodes’ and others’ supporters began to complain online, CPAC responded Thursday on X, saying that it is “untrue that we are not allowing people to come to CPAC because of their involvement with J6. In fact, CPAC has been a constant supporter of this persecuted community, and we support wholeheartedly President Trump’s pardons of the J6 victims.”
Barnett, Rhodes, and others returned to the conference on Thursday and this time were granted entry.
“We’re like gods,” Joe Biggs, a leader of the Proud Boys, who was serving a 17-year sentence for his role in the Capitol, told CNN Thursday when asked how he was received by CPAC attendees.
But still, others were not so lucky. At least one other person charged with January 6-related crimes was denied entry from the conference on Thursday. It was not clear specifically why, but in a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for CPAC said the conference “will not tolerate those who only seek to disrupt our great event.”
The spokesperson declined to elaborate on the nature of the disruptions.
CNN’s Sean Clark contributed reporting to this post.
