Top Tweets for #StandWithStrand

I was honored, and grateful, to give testimony before Congress at the J6 Field Hearing hosted by @RepMattGaetz today. This is my statement:   “Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent about things that matter” ~ MLK, Jr.   Hello, my name is John Strand. Despite my supposedly First-Amendment protected speech on social media, where I have voiced concerns with the legitimacy of the 2020 election, I nevertheless did not travel to from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in January of 2021 for the purpose of protesting at the Capitol. Although I openly supported those protesters who remained peaceful, I personally was present in my official capacity as the security detail for Dr. Simone Gold, who was a scheduled speaker alongside Representatives Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, and many others, at a rally with a government-approved permit for the NE corner outside the Capitol.   I had no plans with anyone else that day. I never engaged in any action outside of my responsibility to protect my client, who herself did not knowingly engage in any violent or unlawful act and had no intention of anything beyond fulfilling her obligation of giving a speech.   To reiterate: neither my client, nor myself, had any criminal intent, nor did we ever engage in any criminal act, that we had present knowledge to be unlawful. Also, the fact that my client was illegally coerced into accepting a fraudulent plea does NOT, in any way whatsoever, negate these facts.   I refused to take a plea because the government’s statement of fact in that plea was nefariously false, and because I was not guilty of any criminal intent. But, I was convicted by an openly prejudiced D.C. jury, and I was recently sentenced to 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 in prison and another three years of probation by a judge who explicitly stated from the bench that his punishment was intensified by his resentment of my public criticisms of the government. 𝘚𝘪𝘹 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, after two and a half years of brutal government and ensuing public persecution…all because I protected a woman in a crowd.   𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦.   I will briefly outline four key points of grave concern:   #1: The American Rule of Law dictates that each individual must be held accountable for their specific actions. It is abhorrent and anti-American to conflate and criminalize a single individual with the actions of another. And in fact, the protesters charged in the 2017 Presidential Inauguration riot were acquitted, precisely because the prosecutors only associated them with the specific criminal acts of others, without evidence proving criminal activity by those individuals being charged. Yet, this is exactly what the DOJ has done to me and hundreds of other J6 defendants, with 100% conviction rate. They are openly punishing individuals for merely being present at a political protest.   #2: America’s survival as a Constitutional Republic depends upon the inalienable right to Free Speech. President George Washington said “For if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter…that [would suggest] the [idea], [that] reason is of no use to us; [then] the freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.” The DOJ’s dishonest distortions of my Free Speech to frame me as a criminal and mislead a jury have led to my wrongful conviction of serious crimes; and a D.C. judge’s fury at my public criticism of the government’s behavior has landed me years in prison; 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙖𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙢. This is the slaughter George Washington warned of, and it should horrify everyone.   https://t.co/83vnWqLy6B 🇺🇸 #WeAreJ6 🧵cont.👇🏼

If *anyone* has earned the right to disavow Trump, it’s me. I put on the MAGA hat in 2020, effectively suiciding my Hollywood career. Then, I protected a woman in a crowd on J6, had my life ruined ever since, & now slammed w/ nearly 3 years prison. I STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP