According to prosecutors, photographs showed Russell Taylor’s “open defiance” of officers and a tactical vest, knife and gloves, scarf and backpack that he wore at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
A Jan. 6 rioter who pleaded guilty and is on probation for storming the U.S. Capitol with a knife, bear spray, hatchet and other weapons has asked for permission to go back there next month for Donald Trump‘s inauguration — enlisting the help of his Mormon lawmaker “friends” in Utah, per his lawyer, who have asked a federal judge to grant him permission to travel.
“He is the guest of a former congressman, and has demonstrated over and over again that he is trustworthy in his travel and compliance with court orders,” wrote defendant Russell Taylor‘s attorney, Dyke E. Huish, in a Wednesday court motion asking U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth — a Ronald Reagan appointee — to let Taylor travel from California to Washington with his wife and children for the Jan. 20 inauguration. He’s currently on probation after being given a six-month sentence for obstruction of an official proceeding, a charge that the Supreme Court ruled in June was wrongly applied to Jan. 6 defendants.
“Over the past four years Mr. Taylor has remained compliant with all court orders and has not given any indications of trouble or concern,” Huish said. “In all prior requests the government has agreed to travel to Washington D.C. as well as Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Counsel submits that Mr. Taylor does not pose any risk or concern for this travel request.”
Former Republican congressman Chris Stewart, R-Utah, and three current members of the state’s congressional delegation have invited Taylor to Trump’s inauguration and have sent a letter to Lamberth expressing their support of his travel request.
“Russ Taylor is a man of integrity and faith who has served those who are less fortunate,” the letter says. “He is constant in his service to members of his local church congregation and others not of his faith in his community. Russ is a successful entrepreneur and business owner with his wife. He is caring father and reveres his family, his faith, and his love of our Country as his highest priority in life. He is admired by many, and especially those in his community. Russ’ passion for what is right and good is reflected in his intentions to lift others. I am honored to extend this invitation for him to attend the Inauguration as my guest.”
It’s unclear who among Utah’s delegation members also supports Taylor’s bid to go to the Trump inauguration. Attempts by Law&Crime to reach them and Stewart have been unsuccessful.
What makes Taylor’s case unique, according to Huish, is that he quickly admitted guilt and cooperated with federal authorities to put members of the extremist Three Percenters militia group behind bars by testifying against them.
“You can be the poster child now for how these cases should be done,” Lamberth reportedly told him in court back in May.
Speaking to Law&Crime on Wednesday, Huish pointed to Lamberth’s appreciation for Taylor’s admittance of guilt and cooperation as one of the reasons he believes Taylor will be allowed to go to Trump’s inauguration.
“In doing so, he demonstrated to Judge Lamberth and the government that he was someone who was worthy of a second chance,” Huish said. “After Jan. 6, he didn’t go out and cause any trouble. He didn’t make any statements. He went back to work and he also cooperated where requested, and did all that he was asked of by the court and the government.”
According to Huish, Taylor has admitted it was wrong to storm the Capitol, but he’s also maintained that the 2020 election results “should have been sent back to the states for proper evaluation.” This is something that Trump, himself, requested after his loss to President Joe Biden, tweeting: “States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN.”
Huish told Law&Crime that if Taylor were asked today about his thoughts on the 2020 election, he would still think the same thing.
“It never has changed,” Huish said of Taylor’s position. “I can say on his behalf, Mr. Taylor always believed that this matter should have been sent back to the states. However, he personally went too far that day, and for that, he took responsibility. But he never gave up his integrity about what happened. He didn’t sell out to anybody. He just told the truth and maintained that position, and when the time came, Judge Lamberth looked at him and said, ‘You are the perfect example … for the way that someone should handle this,’ meaning, you know, you’re the example to show that redemption is possible without giving up your integrity. And Judge Lamberth did not give him any jail time.”
According to Huish, Taylor’s ties to Stewart and the other Utah lawmakers are through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he’s a member. The “entrepreneur” and “business owner,” as Stewart described him, is a graduate of Brigham Young University and owns property in southern Utah, according to Huish and the Orange County Register.
Currently, Taylor resides in Ladera Ranch, California.
“He has a lot of friends and family that run back and forth between the two places,” Taylor’s attorney said. “The Utah-California connection is pretty deep,” Huish added, noting how there have been long-standing ties between Mormons in Southern California and Provo, Utah, for years.
According to PBS SoCal, the Church of Latter-day Saints established a “foothold” in the San Bernardino Valley in the early 1850s — catching the attention of Brigham Young, the church’s president and leader, who was reportedly “sick at the sight of so many of the Saints running off to California,” per filings from one of his clerks. In 1851, a group of nearly 500 Mormons reportedly traveled from Utah to the valley in hopes of setting up a colony. Two of the church’s twelve apostles at the time helped lead the mission, which is detailed on the San Bernardino city website.
“Dedicated to expanding Brigham Young’s religious empire, the religious pioneers purchased 35,000 acres of the San Bernardino Rancho in 1851,” the city says. “The community thrived and in 1854 the City of San Bernardino was officially incorporated. Population at the time was 1,200 — 900 of them Mormons.”
Local Democrats in Utah who spoke to Law&Crime on Wednesday said Taylor’s connections to the church shouldn’t get him a pass, nor should his remorse.
“He was apologetic, but that doesn’t change the fact that he did it,” said Sen. Kathleen Riebe, a Salt Lake City rep who is minority whip and Utah’s second-ranking Senate Democrat. Riebe ran (unsuccessfully) to replace Stewart this year after the congressman retired in 2023 due to his wife having an illness.
“I think that our lieutenant governor here in the state of Utah has tried really hard to bring credibility to our election system and our elections here in the state of Utah, we just had a few audits, and so I don’t think this helps us with the struggle to bring more credibility to our elections — if we’re allowing insurrectionists to attend an inauguration,” Riebe said. “I think that it’s irresponsible of Chris Stewart to ask for that. I think that if you are going to support law enforcement, you should support all law enforcement, and by attacking the Capitol, you are not supporting all law enforcement. I think that it opens the door for more decreasing of the judicial branch’s ability to be a check and balance for this.”
Utah Sen. Nate Blouin, a Democrat from Salt Lake City who represents District 13, told Law&Crime people should be put off by Taylor and Stewart’s requests “regardless” of their political affiliation — especially since Stewart once compared Trump to Italy’s famous Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
“January 6, 2021 was not a good day for American democracy,” Blouin said. “It concerns me deeply that Chris Stewart, who serves in various public capacities at the pleasure of Utah Republican leaders, and current members of our delegation, would so blatantly thumb their noses at the rule of law by inviting a perpetrator back to the scene of the crime. The rest of the group should take Stewart’s lead and slink away from Congress in disgrace. It’s too bad he didn’t stop after saying, ‘Donald Trump does not represent Republican ideals, he is our Mussolini.””
According to Riebe, people should support “the whole process” that we put in place when it comes to electing government officials, not just when the people we want in office manage to win.
“We’re eroding century-old systems of checks and balances,” she said. “I think it’s disgraceful that the party of ‘law and order’ is flouting the law, is flouting the order. And it’s just disgraceful that they can’t follow the rules that were determined over a century ago. And it’s disappointing that our elected leaders cannot be better leaders for the kids in our country. They are setting a tone for generations to come … and as we look to the future, this is grim.”
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, one of Utah’s highest ranking Democratic officials — as all of its delegation members are currently Republican — told Law&Crime that while it’s easy to dismiss Taylor’s request based on one’s personal feelings and political beliefs toward the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, laws must be followed and Stewart has a “privilege and the right” to invite Taylor to the inauguration, regardless of what he or other people think.
“I can empathize and I completely understand why people would say that [Jan. 6 offenders] shouldn’t have that opportunity,” Gill said. “But [Stewart] has the privilege and the right to do it. There’s one president, there’s one Congress. They’re there and they get to exercise, hopefully, good governance in the benefit of all of us without betraying the ideals that we hold together as a nation.”
Gill said that he is sympathetic to those who think Taylor should not be invited, both as a Democrat and district attorney. He described elected officials who engage in “tribalism” as doing a “dishonor” to the ideas that ultimately define Americans as a people.
“In these difficult times, everybody on the left and the right are looking for some hope,” Gill said. “My thing is, you can’t attack those institutions. Because only those that want to disrupt our democracy and our republic attack the institution. Public servants daily deliver on the promise of American democracy under that rule of law in the constitutional framework, and that sometimes means those rights belong to people you may not always agree with. But we do that because it serves a higher ideal, and there should be no shame in that.”
Huish told Law&Crime that he expects Taylor to find out in the coming days whether he’ll be allowed to go to the inauguration. He’s expected to spend most of his time in Maryland during the trip.
