It’s been about a year and a half since Zink was convicted of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, as well as disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, in connection with the January 6 U.S. Capitol breach. He was sentenced to three months in federal prison, followed by a year of supervised release.
Since then, Trump and the U.S. Supreme Court have pardoned Zink on two misdemeanors and a felony charge. According to Zink, one of the most significant aspects of these pardons is the opportunity to “get the real story out about January 6.”
“But as for the rest of the 1,447 days that we’ve gone through this, it’s been an extremely trying time during the stress of all of this. My wife and I finally decided to come forward that we had two miscarriages during this time over misdemeanors where the federal government had just absolutely destroyed the lives of Americans for protesting,” Zink shared.
In a video, Zink was quoted saying, “We knocked down the gates. We’re storming the Capitol. You can’t stop us.” Prosecutors argued that Zink’s congressional campaign was merely an attempt to continue portraying himself as a victim, pointing to a lack of remorse for his actions. However, Zink claimed he was tortured and “practically poisoned” while in jail. Four years later, he stated he wouldn’t have done anything differently and highlighted something he believes has been overlooked by the mainstream media.
“Even when you look at recent events. On the 20th, the Department of Justice actually had the first January 6 defendant acquitted long before the pardon was issued. There are more severe charges than mine that were associated with that, and that’s not being covered,” Zink said. “I’m going forward with appeal. That is the reason that I was sent to federal prison. The prosecutors tried to give me five and a half years in prison, and I was remanded to 90 days because I wouldn’t apologize. What prosecutor is allowed to centralize themselves around my congressional campaign, saying that it was nothing more than an extension of what I believe? That’s not true at all. I wanted to represent the people of Congressional District 19, and I may actually follow up on that to see if they have any additional comments about that.”
He claims the prosecutions have been riddled with lies and misrepresentations about the events of that day and insists that the truth is about to come to light.
“When you look at the approach of the federal government in the way that they have absolutely maliciously gone after Americans who were either walking through the building or, like myself, who only spoke. I never entered the building. I never assaulted anyone. I never damaged any property. I was actually on the east ports protecting police officers; all of this is on video, and then you have a populace of jurors who, 92.68%, voted for Kamala Harris and viewed all Trump supporters as a threat to democracy,” Zink explained. “That is where you get all of these guilty convictions and the way that they have been able to manipulate the system. As for me, I had the right that day for my First Amendment constitutional rights to go in as a journalist and speak about what was going on.”
Zink stated that he was there to cover the event but still had the right to his opinion and to express it. He emphasized that people need to understand the full context of what happened.
“We have just been told that we were acknowledged, the fact that we had permits to protest inside of the area that they’re saying is this restricted cordon-off area that had all these signs, and that’s just simply not true. The signs were not all the way around there,” Zink recalled. “It was a figure of speech of ‘We knocked down the gates. We’re storming the Capitol. That you can’t stop us is you can’t stop us from protesting.’ They’re putting us into this category that we were all there as just these violent insurrectionists, and nobody was armed. The way that this has been portrayed is just absolutely insane.”
He believes there has been bias in the court proceedings for the January 6 defendants from the very beginning.
“Under the 11th hour of the Biden DOJ, they tried to dismiss my appeal under the cover of darkness so it wouldn’t go forward because I have one of the best cases for appeal because of the way that you know this prosecution, particularly Carrie Walsh and Michael D Brown, have lied in their initial proceedings about what happened, and then when you mix in the fact of the jury pools being tainted and jurors being reused in cases that have already convicted other January 6 defendants with a 100% conviction rate,” Zink shared. “When you look at the DC scales, here are some numbers for you: 100% conviction rate on all January 6 defendants, and about 61% of convictions for every other crime, including murder, from the rest of Washington, DC. So if you look at those numbers, an absolute bias is involved. And you know, I think going forward, we’re going to see a lot more exposure.”
When asked if he believes the pardons undermine law enforcement, Zink responded, “I don’t think it does… Because the law was upheld. The presidential pardon is a power that was granted to the President for that individual to make specific decisions. You know, we saw in the last administration that Joe Biden has dismissed over 2,500 pardons that have come out, including his own family. So if we’re going to claim that January 6 is the circumventing of the law, then the Biden administration would have to be guilty of that too.”
Zink added that he was already aware of the pardons before his own was granted and feels very relieved to get back into the field.
“I was aware that when Donald Trump did get into office, he was going to be signing the pardons. I was also made aware by my attorney, and then my probation officer here in Lubbock notified me that probation has come to an end. It is a huge blessing now because I’ll be able to go back to the oil field and back into the job so that I can go back and start talking to people in the district and find out what the needs are going forward,” Zink shared.
Zink stated that he is not defined by his ties to January 6, but by his roles as a dad, husband, and man of God. While he has been pardoned, he emphasized that the job is not done yet.
“I still believe that there were many aspects of my case that were exaggerated as well as manipulated in there. This pardon, for me, means a lot because now I can go and continue to fight my case. I’m better to where I don’t have my hands tied behind my back; in my case, there’s still some discovery; I was never given my discovery,” Zink explained. “The federal government selected these 27 pictures and videos to prosecute me, and there are so many others that have come that are going to come out. We filed our motions to go ahead and take possession and custody of that evidence, and I think that life looks great moving forward. I’m not defined by January 6. I serve my Lord and Savior, and I’m ready to move forward and see what I can do, not only to help this district but also to help America.”
In the near future, Zink believes more of the story will come to light, adding that he is aware of additional footage that may be released—footage with higher classifications that the previous administration did not show.
“I do agree that it was a dark day. We had men and women who were murdered at the United States Capitol: Ashli Babbitt, Ben Phillips, Kevin Grayson, and Rosanne Boyland, just to name a few of those. We also had four individuals who committed suicide during their proceedings as they were coming forward. So I do agree that it was a dark day in history where you have people who stepped outside of the line and took the lives of Americans who still have not been held accountable for those actions,” Zink shared. “I’m hoping that going forward, we can have some clarity on the events that actually happened on the ground with those individuals and that the Trump administration and Kash Patel will work with the American public to reveal everything else that has not been known about that day because the American people do deserve to know what happened across all spectrums. If there’s a missing angle to the story, we deserve to know the truth.”
In the end, Zink believes the January 6 defendants were not given fair trials and would like to see the additional footage released.
“I think that justice should be brought, but the thing is that it has to be done on a fair playing field. I do not believe that a single January 6 defendant was given a fair trial based upon the jury pools and the location of all these trials. If justice is applied equally under the law, it shouldn’t matter where a person is tried,” Zink said. “I am right now aware that there are still over 11,000 hours of footage from the Capitol that have never been released to the general public, including several cameras that I needed for my case whenever I was going forward. Since my case has concluded, I have actually got a picture and video of a camera that was never released, that had a different angle that actually tells and collaborates the story that I told on January 6 about police officers working with me and my father on the east side porch.”
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