WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 rioter who was the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories suggesting he was a plant who worked with law enforcement was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday, among the longest prison sentences given in connection with the U.S. Capitol attack.
Zachary Alam, who wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat under a black and tan fur-lined hat on Jan. 6, 2021, was often at the front of the mob during the attack and entered the building through a broken window. Once he was inside, he assaulted officers and smashed windows leading into the House Speaker’s Lobby just before another Donald Trump supporter was shot, prosecutors said. He was convicted of eight felonies and several misdemeanors in September after a jury trial.
At his sentencing hearing in a federal courtroom in Washington, Alam said he believed then in his heart that what he did on Jan. 6 was right, even though he knew it was against the law. Alam said Thursday that he and his fellow rioters fought and cried and bled and died for what was right and that sometimes you needed to break the rules to "do the right thing." He also said "several good things" came out of Jan. 6, because, in his mind, it exposed the FBI.
Alam, this time wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, once again echoed Trump's lies about the 2020 election.
"Trump just won the presidential election less than 48 hours ago," Alam said Thursday. "Was the 2021 transfer of presidential power warranted? I don't think so."
Alam also said that since his arrest he has found himself the subject of conspiracy theories. He pointed to a segment that aired last year on “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” a program produced by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which portrayed him as a "key instigator" in the Capitol attack. Referring to Alam as "earmuff man," Attkisson suggested he was working with law enforcement that day, having appeared “from behind police lines.” There is, however, extensive photo and video evidence that shows Alam first at Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, then confronting officers protecting the Justice Department building, then outside the Capitol with the mob and finally storming the Capitol itself.
In court Thursday, Alam said his fellow Jan. 6 inmates saw the segment in the jail in Washington when it aired on the local Sinclair station, WJLA. That led to a conflict with other rioters, he said, and he was moved to solitary confinement. (His lawyer said that was for his own protection when Alam was targeted by fellow inmates).
“They came to the conclusion that I was a confidential human source,” Alam said of his fellow Jan. 6 defendants. “It didn’t go over well.”
In reality, evidence presented in the case showed not that Alam was working with law enforcement but that he went to the Capitol, in his words, as a “Trump supporter,” an opponent of Democrats and “a true patriot." His mother also wrote in a note to the court that her son told her that he “got ‘wrapped up in it’, inspired by President Trump.”
Alam, whom federal authorities arrested in late January 2021, is also one of a small fraction of Jan. 6 defendants who were held pretrial. He has already served nearly four years in jail.
Alam told the court Thursday that he wants a full pardon when Trump takes office in January. (President-elect Trump has called Capitol rioters “political prisoners” and “hostages” and said he would “absolutely” consider pardoning every one of them).
Federal prosecutors, the judge, Alam’s lawyer and Alam himself appeared frustrated with the baseless claims that Alam was a federal informant.
“Zero,” U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich said. “Zero evidence of that.”
Alam’s attorney, Steven A. Metcalf, said that there “is no cooperation on his part,” that Alam has “no antifa involvement” and that he is not a confidential human source for the FBI.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebekah Lederer said Alam’s fellow rioters had made him “a scapegoat,” noting that they tried to label him "antifa" or claim he was part of the “fedsurrection,” the conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack was a setup driven by undercover law enforcement entities.
Federal prosecutors had sought 136 months, or more than 11 years, in prison for Alam, calling him one of the “most violent and aggressive” rioters that day and saying he “spent the day antagonizing officers and inciting other rioters, culminating in his repeated violent and forceful attempts to reach congressional members and staffers as they frantically evacuated the House floor.”
Friedrich, a Trump appointee, called Jan. 6 "a full-throated attack" on constitutional principles as she sentenced Alam.
"Those are not the acts of a patriot," Friedrich told Alam. "To say otherwise is delusional."
More than 1,500 people have been arrested and more than 1,100 have been convicted in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and more than 600 defendants have been sentenced to periods of incarceration ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison.
Metcalf said Alam deserved a shorter sentence, pointing to his mental health needs, which were discussed in detail during a sealed part of the sentencing hearing.
"Dark day, we move on," Metcalf said. "Four years later, same man gets elected again."
Political violence, Lederer said, was "attempting to weave its way into the fabric of this nation," and it was important for the court to send a strong message of deterrence, calling his sentencing an important day not only for Alam but for the public, as well.
Even after he saw fellow rioter Ashli Babbitt get shot and killed, Alam was still calling for violence, Lederer said. He was captured on video saying, "We need guns, bro ... we need guns” outside the Capitol.
“He knew the job wasn’t done,” Lederer said. “He knew the battle was not over.”
The Capitol attack, she said, was a time when Americans themselves attacked the existence of democracy, adding that one thing that made Jan. 6 so terrifying was the homegrown nature of the threat. Lederer said history will look favorably upon those officers who protected the Capitol and defended the Constitution on Jan. 6 but not upon Alam, who "tried to tread on it."
