"Political prisoners"

Most nights at 9 p.m., defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol flicker the lights in their D.C. jail cells to signal to supporters outside that it’s time to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” together. The recital has become a sacred ritual for a subset of Donald Trump’s movement devoted to heroizing the accused rioters.

The former president is now embracing their cause, lending his voice to a recording of the “J6 Prison Choir” and playing it to start the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign. The song, “Justice for All,” features Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance mixed with a rendition of the national anthem.

[...]

Trump recorded himself saying the Pledge of Allegiance after he heard about the production and wanted to participate, according to the campaign.

[...]

“Our people love those people,” Trump went on to say at the rally, speaking of those who were jailed. “What’s happening in that prison, it’s a hellhole. ... These are people that shouldn’t have been there.”

The nightly singing inside the jail was captured in a video that Trump allies have shared online in the past two months. The D.C. Department of Corrections confirmed that the video was taken in one of the jail’s housing units. The agency is now investigating. Spokeswoman Sylvia Lane declined to elaborate on the nature of the probe but said that “any social media use or video-sharing platforms is prohibited” for detainees.

[...]

The Washington Post identified five of the roughly 15 men who are featured in the video. Four of them were charged with assaulting police, using weapons such as a crowbar, sticks and chemical spray, including against Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died the next day.

[...]

Kenneth Sicknick, the brother of the deceased officer, told The Post he was “disgusted” by Trump’s glorification of the prisoners. “The rallying cry is that no police officer died on Jan. 6, and they leave out inconvenient things like my brother’s first stroke happened on Jan. 6, and he was put on life support and died the following day,” he said. “And they do that over and over and over again.”

  WaPo

Even if no police officer died as a result of the insurrectionist riot (5 did), what Trump is doing would be disgusting.