Two brothers who were pardoned by Donald Trump after being convicted in the January 6 riots before they even turned 30 say they were saved from horrific prison conditions by the president.
Matthew and Gregory Purdy, 25 and 27, were two of dozens of Trump supporters charged with felonies after they went into the capitol in 2021 to protest Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Speaking exclusively with the hosts of Daily Mail’s Welcome to Magaland at CPAC, Gregory saw the nightmarish reality of the U.S. prison system during his seven months in prison, which he said included disgusting meals that included rat feces.
He also said he faced harassment from liberal guards who tried to turn other inmates against the January 6 convicts.
‘When I found out that I was leaving jail after President Trump announced his pardon for the January 6ers, it was better than all the Christmases I’d ever experienced combined,’ Gregory told executive politics editor Kelly Laco and chief reporter Germania Rodriguez Poleo on Friday.
‘Everybody who’s experiencing injustice in our system because there’s so many people behind bars who don’t have a voice and are actually innocent to this day, so I was so thankful and was so excited,’ he added.
‘I was so happy and I got to immediately reunite with my family, and the most important part was it was a pardon for America because it brought light and justice to,’ he added.
Brothers Gregory and Matthew Purdy, 27 and 25, went to prison and were pardoned by Trump before they hit the age of 30. They told their story on DailyMail’s Welcome to Magaland podcast
Gregory Purdy (C), Edward Jacob Lang (2nd L) and Robert Turner (R), celebrate their release with friends and well wishers outside the DC Central Detention Facility on January 21
Matthew, left, served 45 days of his 90-day sentence, while Gregory served seven months of what was expected to be a five-year sentence
Gregory had not yet been sentenced but faced five years in prison after being convicted of civil disorder, two felony counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding police and an additional felony obstruction of an official proceeding.
His brother Matthew had served 45 days of a 90-day sentence for misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building when he learned he had been pardoned.
‘My stomach dropped and I was just ever so happy to see my family again, hold them, sleep in my nice comfortable bed,’ Matthew told Welcome to Magaland at the conservative conference.
‘Good meals cooked by my girlfriend… the simpler things and my God, I’m ever so grateful.’
Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, including people convicted of assaulting police officers, using his clemency powers on his first day back in office to undo the massive prosecution of the unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.
The Capitol riot left more than 100 police officers injured as the angry mob of Trump supporters — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — overwhelmed law enforcement, shattered windows and sent lawmakers and aides running into hiding.
The Purdy brothers are seen at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Matthew is pictured on the left and Gregory on the right
While pardons were expected, the speed and the scope of the clemency amounted to a stunning dismantling of the Justice Department’s effort to hold participants accountable over what has been described as one of the darkest days in the country’s history.
Casting the rioters as ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages,’ Trump has claimed they were unfairly treated by the Justice Department, which also charged him with federal crimes in two cases he contends were politically motivated.
Trump said the pardons will end ‘a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years’ and begin ‘a process of national reconciliation.’
The pardons were met with elation from Trump supporters and lawyers for the Jan. 6 defendants. Trump supporters gathered late Monday in the cold outside the Washington jail, where more than a dozen defendants were being held before the pardons.
Democrats slammed the move to extend the pardons to violent rioters, many of whose crimes were captured on camera and broadcast on live TV.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it ‘an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution.’
