By Kelly John Walker, FreedomTalk Magazine—The Journal of Truth & Virtue
Hidden behind the polite façade of “new leadership” and the hopeful talk of a Trump “Golden Age”—the Deep State, a cornered and desperate wounded predator, has only doubled down. Its old tactics—intimidation, lawfare, and reputational assassination—are alive and well, working overtime to silence both patriots and parents and fool President Trump into thinking it’s “all taken care of.”
The political persecution of Americans did not end with the release of January 6 patriots. It did not end with the retraction of the Garland memo labeling concerned parents as “domestic terrorists.” The Deep State knows this and also knows that if timely justice doesn’t come for these people, President Trump’s base will disintegrate in disappointment and disillusion. That’s the play, and so far, it’s working.
“Thousands of violent felons who stormed the US Capitol during the January 6th attack…should never have been pardoned.” -Hakeem Jeffries
From Hakeem Jeffries’ recent rhetoric, all but green-lighting violence toward January 6 Americans to fresh acts of retaliation against parents like Chad Williams and Crystal Marull, the message from the bureaucracy is unmistakable: dissent is still a crime. The same weaponized justice system that destroyed lives to make an example of truth-tellers hasn’t been dismantled—it’s simply gone into stealth mode. The Uniparty is willing to wait out the next three years and then return with a vengeance to complete the job of destroying American citizens who dared to question their dark agenda.
I know, because I’m still living in the crosshairs.
From the Capitol Steps to the School Board
The same terror tactics used to shatter the lives of January 6 defendants have been and continue to be deployed against parents like me who stood up at school board and school office meetings. In my case, a lawful act of free speech in Vail, Arizona led to an armed SWAT-style arrest in front of my children, a months-long prosecution, and reputational assault—precisely the kind of “shock and awe” David Sumrall described when the FBI repeatedly came to his home.
Sumrall, founder of StopHate.com and filmmaker behind Writing History, Bloody Hill, and 1000 Days of Terror, has spent years documenting how ordinary citizens were hunted and humiliated to send a message: dissent will be punished. Even now, years later, he remains under intimidation.
“They sent the FBI to my house a week and a half ago,” Sumrall told Kristi Leigh on LindellTV. “They said they were just there to ‘check a box.’ Well, who made the box?”
That chilling phrase—check a box—encapsulates what many of us have endured: a government treating citizens as data points to be neutralized, not human beings to be afforded the protections of due process.
The Same Playbook, Different Targets
After January 6, the Biden Justice Department unleashed a scorched-earth campaign of lawfare. Homes were raided at dawn. Grandmothers were shackled. Families were destroyed. Today, the same machinery is being turned against parents, whistleblowers, and election integrity advocates.
People were labeled “extremists,” surveilled, silenced, and shamed. As Sumrall said, “They didn’t have the proof for insurrection—they just wanted to destroy character.” That is precisely what the DOJ did to school parents: fabricate threat narratives, twist words, and use fear to control.
Witness my own targeting. After Tucson Judge Anthony Riojas reviewed the full 45-minute video of a 2021 Vail, Arizona school office meeting I attended, he concluded, “He never raised his voice…What he did is he disagreed with you. That’s not disorderly conduct…Citizens have the right to disagree.” Yet prosecutors disregarded that finding and pressed ahead, promoting a false “violence” narrative to the media even before trial. During the proceedings, Magistrate Geraldine Hale refused to admit Superintendent John Carruth’s memo confirming the incident “resolved peacefully,” effectively suppressing exculpatory evidence. Recently cited by the Tucson City Magistrate Merit Selection Commission for “abuse toward parties” and “denial of due process,” Hale proceeded to prove the point—imposing a retaliatory 100-day jail sentence, nearly $10,000 in fines, and an illegal post-trial gag order on me—while the other two fathers, who were not public figures and, ironically, men of color, were quietly let off with small fines. (Obviously, I’ve ignored the gag order.)
The connective tissue between these assaults is unmistakable. Both groups—patriots at the Capitol and parents in classrooms—stood up to treasonous lies. Both refused to surrender their conscience. Both paid dearly for it. Both await the justice, vindication and restitution we as voters were promised as part of the Trump Administration’s election platform.
“My son’s history teacher allowed students to label him a ‘Naziphile’ simply for his interest in history and participation in ROTC. She later nominated my son as the ‘Most Likely to Become a Dictator’…all because of his conservative values and our perspectives.”-FL school mom, Crystal Marull
For J6ers, trials were kangaroo courts operating on the premise of guilty until proven innocent (but we’re not going to let you prove anything). Exculpatory evidence was hidden or ignored; perjury went unpunished. For parents, the persecution often used subtler forms: false charges, CPS intimidation, employment retaliation, and social isolation. Different battlefields, same war.
As former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard recently warned, “The weaponization of government against Americans did not happen in one agency, one time… it happened repeatedly over the duration of the Biden administration.” She underscored that “true accountability is the first step toward lasting change” and that “the American people made a clear choice when they elected President Trump—to stop the Biden administration’s prolific and dangerous weaponization of government agencies against the American people and the Constitution.” Gabbard’s creation of an interagency working group under the Trump Administration to “depoliticize and deweaponize government” reflects a national demand to understand “what agencies carried out, what roles, and why.”
David Sumrall recounted how a judge ignored clear video proof that a police officer—not the defendant—had cut a tarp at the Capitol. “The judge said, ‘We can get past this. Let’s move on,’” he recalled. “That’s what happened in January 6th cases all the time.”
That exact phrase—“move on”—is what every J6 hostage and targeted parent has been told by local officials, media outlets, and even supposed allies. Move on from losing your reputation. Move on from being handcuffed for asking questions. Move on from being called a domestic terrorist. Move on from being hunted like a criminal to this day.
That same political bias played out against parents—and continues to play out—and the “move on” attitude threatens to stall getting justice owed parents targeted by Biden’s DOJ.
During a Senate hearing just days ago, on October 7, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi assured Americans, “No longer will parents be targeted. No longer will parents who care about whether their elementary school children have to read a transgender book be told they cannot have any say in their child’s education. That has ended under this administration.”
But families like mine know that statement, however well-intentioned, remains wishful thinking—not reality. The intimidation, false prosecutions, and reputational destruction haven’t ended; they’ve simply gone underground, buried beneath layers of bureaucracy that quietly defy the very spirit of President Trump’s Executive Order on Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling. That order was clear: stop the weaponization of education, restore parental rights, and dismantle the machinery of ideological control. Yet rogue officials within the system—from DC on down to school districts—are slow-walking, ignoring, or outright resisting its directives.
It’s time for those entrusted with enforcing the President’s will to recognize what parents on the ground already know—the targeting hasn’t stopped. It’s just changed tactics.
But we won’t move on. We can’t. Truth is not something you “move on” from so that lies can take root in our history books. If we don’t protect our own citizens, then we no longer live in a representative Republic—we live under an oligarchy of elites who’ve raised the D.C. drawbridge and left the rest of America to fend for itself. But we think that’s not the vision President Trump—who has firmly committed to “returning the power to the people”—will allow to become the status quo.
A Vigil for the Soul of the Republic
Each Thursday night, Sumrall leads vigils outside the White House, holding signs with hearts instead of fists. These are not protests of anger—they are pleas for partnership. “We’re trying to get the President’s attention peacefully,” he said. “We want to help him finish what he started—to bring full justice, vindication, and restitution.”
That call resonates deeply with parents like me, who also seek vindication—not merely to clear our names, but to restore faith in a justice system that has been desecrated by politics. We stand not against President Trump, but with him, urging completion of what was begun: true restoration, not partial pardons.
And we will stand with Sumrall and the J6 patriots, both figuratively and literally.
For many J6 families, the commutations were lifelines—but incomplete ones. Several patriots remain in prison, others still face re-incarceration, and dozens have died waiting for justice. “There’s never been restitution,” Sumrall said. “The public needs to know they’re not criminals.” The same is true for targeted parents: we were not criminals, yet we were treated worse than felons.
Much like in the J6 community, Sam Sorbo and I, as co-founders of Parents Demanding Justice Alliance, have watched good and decent people sink into despair—some so broken by the relentless injustice that they’ve taken their own lives. They lost hope that truth would ever matter, that vindication would ever come, or that anyone in power still cared enough to make it right.
Much like in the J6 community, Sam Sorbo and I, as co-founders of the Parents Demanding Justice Alliance, have seen good people slip into despair and even take their own lives—because they lost hope that any justice or vindication would ever come. It’s one thing to demonize a crowd at the Capitol, allegedly orchestrated by Nancy Pelosi—where 274 embedded FBI agents played a part in the staging of the event—to label them “insurrectionists.” But portraying concerned parents as “domestic terrorists” is the Deep State’s “jumping-the-shark moment.” It not only calls into serious question the entire J6 smear, it confirms what many now clearly see: the U.S. government weaponized against its own people to silence dissent by any means necessary, including intimidation, incarceration, and the destruction of innocent lives.
The Unfinished Work of Justice
As a father and journalist, I have watched innocent American families including my own lose everything—their homes, jobs, and dignity—because they refused to bow to false narratives. I’ve seen mothers handcuffed for attending board meetings, fathers bankrupted by court costs, and veterans vilified for filming public officials.
And now, even after the change in administration, FBI harassment continues. “The same agency that ignored Antifa threats still knocks on the doors of patriots,” Sumrall said. “They should be asking for my evidence—but instead, they’re investigating me.”
It’s the same perverse inversion I witnessed in education: real abusers shielded, truth-tellers punished. The machinery of intimidation has outlived the Biden years—it’s now woven into the bureaucracy itself.
The Restitution Imperative
What we’re seeing is a national reawakening of solidarity. J6 families, persecuted parents, election workers, doctors, and whistleblowers are linking arms—not in violence, but in faith and fortitude—to demand restitution. The word matters. It’s more than justice; it’s restoration. It means repairing what was broken and compensating for what was stolen.
“We’re grateful for where we are,” Sumrall told me. “The pardons are awesome. But there’s more work to do. We have to finish the job and bring our people home.”
That’s the message we now carry to President Trump: Thank you for what you’ve done. But the mission is not complete. Full vindication must include public acknowledgment, formal restitution, and safeguards so this never happens again—to any American, left or right, parent or protester.
The Great Reckoning Ahead
History will record these years not just as a time of tyranny, but as a test of courage. Some knelt to fear. Others stood in faith. Those who endured deserve more than sympathy—they deserve restoration, vindication and full justice.
We stand together—January 6 families, targeted parents, silenced doctors, and censored journalists—united under one banner: Justice for ALL—and we say with one voice to President Trump and to the nation we love: #JusticeDelayedIsJusticeDenied.
Let us finish what was begun. Let us make the persecuted whole again. And let us ensure that never again will the American government turn its weapons on its own people. We are Americans; we do not tolerate tyranny.
Kelly John Walker is an American statesman, senior writer, author, and entrepreneur. He is the Founder of FreedomTalk, Editor-in-Chief of FreedomTalk Magazine, and Co-Founder of Parents Demanding Justice Alliance. His work has appeared in The Washington Times, Gateway Pundit, The Epoch Times, Newsmax, Townhall, Law Enforcement Today, and more. He’s a frequent guest on national programs including Real America’s Voice, Bannon’s War Room, NTD Capitol Report, and more. Kelly holds degrees in English, Theology, and a Master of Science earned on a U.S. Department of Defense fellowship. In 2020, after being canceled and arrested for standing against government overreach, he became a leading independent journalist and advocate for liberty and parental rights.
