and we'll be right back.
Thank you.
Don't get down when you're seeing the worst,
cause the last will be the first.
What a day I'm telling you, all things will be new,
living up in a down world.
Yeah we're living, yeah we're living,
living up in a down world.
Oh.
This is Pastor Jimmy Pruitt.
I want to welcome you to Living Up in a Down World.
You can see the
notice I didn't introduce Annette because this is a special edition of Living Up in
a Down World and I am encouraged, excited and blessed to introduce to you Jenny McCombs.
Jenny welcome to today's podcast.
Thank you for having me on.
So Jenny I've been totally stoked about doing this.
I mean really excited because this day, January 6th is a very important day on the calendar.
It was an important day constitutionally.
Yes.
In terms of our nation, but it's also a difficult day for many.
And so I want you to introduce, why I would have you on the podcast.
We'll riff on that a little bit, but I want you to share a little bit of your background
so that people understand why you're here today and why January 6th is such an important
date.
Absolutely.
So I am a January 6th defendant and I'm sure we'll cover part of my story of being prosecuted
and persecuted by the federal government.
But it all kind of started back when I was young.
I was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas.
I was homeschooled my whole life, which I believe is why I turned out so well.
And I've been involved in politics since I was three years old because my mother would
always take me on election day and she would point at which bubble to color in.
And so I like to say I've been voting since I was three.
And then more importantly, I have been protesting since I was five years old.
My mom took me to my first protest, which was outside of the Planned Parenthood Clinic
in Lubbock, Texas when I was five years old.
And that Planned Parenthood Clinic is no longer there.
Now I'm not foolish enough to think that's because I was five years old holding a sign.
You never know.
Right.
So I've always been involved in politics.
And I think it's very important for people, especially Christians, to be involved in politics.
I hate when I hear somebody say, oh, well, I just don't do politics.
Well, politics does you just fine.
That's right.
In every aspect of your life.
And so I'm a firm believer that if the church as a whole across this country would step
up and be involved in politics, then we wouldn't have the vast majority of the problems that
we have in our society today.
I so agree.
We've absolutely changed the direction and trajectory of our nation back to a place.
It's not just about going back, but there are things about our history that if we forget
them, we are doomed to repeat them.
And that is exactly what we've done.
We've been in this cycle.
I would call it a spin cycle downward towards what some would say is more progressive, more
libertarian, more free thinking.
And in fact, we've cast off restraint and the scripture tells us that when the people
went with no vision, without a vision, the people perish.
Or another way it says is without a revelation, the people cast off restraint.
And so because we're not looking back, we're not going back to say, what did the founders,
what was this based on?
What was the whole point of this, what they call the grand experiment?
And when we don't know our history and we don't understand how this started, then we
are literally doomed to repeat the mistakes that caused the need for it or arose the need
for it in the first place.
And so at three years old protesting and mama teaching you what it means to speak up, how's
that impacted your whole life?
How does that informed you into your life?
Oh, it's been fantastic.
I've always loved politics.
It's the greatest show on earth.
And it is a show.
It is.
And what is it that Shakespeare says?
All the world's a stage and all the men and women are merely actors.
And that's absolutely what politics is.
I don't know.
There's so many things about it.
I've always enjoyed being involved in politics.
I did run for office.
I think everybody should have to do that once because it's certainly not for the faint of
heart.
In 2019, I ran for mayor of Midland and I was running against the incumbent and then
also the lead preacher of the mega church.
And he's the one that won.
And I'm very grateful for that.
Now, I did win both televised debates.
Nice.
I could see that.
I will never debate you.
But Patrick's the one that won and he's a dear friend of mine and he did a fantastic
job.
Bless his heart.
He won in 2019 and then all the 2020 crazy stuff.
And there were a lot of things going on in Midland and I was protesting all over the
place in 2020.
And then in 2021, when January 6 happened in 2021 and I was ultimately arrested and
all of those things.
So let's pause there.
I want to camp out there for a minute.
So let's go to that.
Let's go back to January 6.
We were talking before we hit record and then while you were talking, I said, we need to
hit record.
I mean, this is what I want you to share because first of all, why is January 6 an important
day on the calendar in general, especially after an election, during an election cycle?
And why were you there in Washington, DC at the Capitol on January 6, 2021?
So January 6 is the day that the electoral college is certified by Congress.
So all of the electors cast their votes based off of the rules for each different state
in December.
So all of that has already happened and then Congress certifies it on January 6 every four
years.
And so I like to say that protesting is one of my spiritual gifts, which probably makes
me pretty difficult for some people.
But I went to DC in July of 2020 for President Trump's salute to our troops because Midland
Texas Chamber of Commerce, which was where I was living at the time, decided that a respiratory
virus was too dangerous to celebrate Independence Day from a tyrannical government.
And so they shut down all of the Fourth of July celebrations.
So I went to DC.
And then I also went back on November 13 of 2020, which was a little bit after what I
believe was a stolen election and was there for the million magma march and wasn't planning
on going on January 6.
President Trump tweeted out about mid-December of 2020 and he said, be there on January 6.
It'll be wild.
And I'd just gotten back, you know, it's expensive to travel and all of that.
And you had your own business at the time.
Yes, I owned a flower shop in Midland for about eight and a half years.
And you know, it's expensive to travel and DC is not safe at all.
And it's winter, dead of winter.
And it's winter.
Yes.
And I hate being cold.
And but then I realized that when President Trump put out that tweet that was the one
and only time still to this day that he has ever said to be somewhere.
He's never said come to my rallies or go to this thing, anything like that.
And I thought, well, I think I should probably go.
And so I got there on January 5.
And on January 6 that morning, that day, the high on January 6 of 2021 was 22 degrees.
Not good for West Texans.
It was miserable, miserable.
And I got out in that area, that ellipse area over by the White House about six o'clock
in the morning.
And there were millions of people, millions of people.
There was anywhere between one to three million people.
I think whoever's in charge of official numbers finally decided that there was 1.7 million
people there that day.
And listen to President Trump's speech and he said peacefully and patriotically, go down
to the Capitol and make your voices heard.
And a lot of people like to skip over that part.
And so I ran back to the hotel real quick and put on a couple more layers of clothes
and got some snacks because DC had shut down all food vendors, all of everything.
And then walked down to the Capitol and I wound up going through the West Terror Store,
which was opened by police officers and they were motioning people inside, which some would
consider to be called entrapment.
So let's clarify just for a moment because some things had happened before that where
there were some scuffles at the barriers.
There was confusion.
There was a lot of, there were some smoke bombs thrown into the middle of the crowd.
I mean, flash bombs.
I mean, there were some stuff that happened that began to provoke the crowd and provoke
people to almost like we're under attack.
I mean, what's going on?
Yes.
So by the time I got to the Capitol, all of the barricades, fencing, bike racks, anything
like that was completely gone.
And I don't mean like crumpled up to the side.
Right.
I mean, it was removed.
Because you would think if all this was happening and it was this out of control, chaotic mob
that you'd see carnage, you'd see stuff strewn across the lawn or you'd see things off to
the side, the barricades, all the stuff that was holding people back, the stanchions they
call them and all those things.
But there was none of that.
By the time you got there, they were like going, opening the doors.
Absolutely.
The doors were open.
Absolutely.
And by the time I got there-
So you didn't go through a window?
No, I didn't go through a window.
I never break the law on purpose.
Sometimes I find out after the fact that I broke the law.
So there were already people all over the scaffolding, which was set up for the inauguration
on the 20th.
And January 6th was the most beautiful, patriotic thing that I have ever been a part of.
I can't tell you how many times we sang the national anthem, did the Pledge of Allegiance
and God bless America, prayed.
And was that kind of breaking out spontaneously throughout the crowd?
Oh, yes.
I've seen video of that where pockets of people would start praying or start singing Amazing
Grace or various things or patriotic songs.
And it was all day long like that.
It was wonderful.
I personally never experienced any violence or damage to property from protesters.
I only saw violence from police officers towards protesters.
And so, I mean, it was just I can't even explain like the camaraderie, the feeling of being
with over a million people that are like minded, that love their country and that are willing
to show up and redress their government for their grievances, which we have a constitutional
right to.
And say, wait a minute, something's not right.
And there were people from all walks of life.
I mean, I remember seeing elderly people in wheelchairs and walkers that were being carried
up the scaffolding to the terrace so that they could go inside the Capitol.
That door that I went through, by the time I got inside, there were already thousands
of people inside.
And that door went right up to the Capitol rotunda.
And I saw families with small children that were pointing at the paintings and the statues
and the Statuary Hall and explaining the history of our country.
Well, and that's just like what you would see on a normal tourist day.
Absolutely.
If you're going to take a tour of the Capitol, you were seeing the kinds of things you would
expect to see if the Capitol is open.
So you didn't think you're stepping into a war zone or a terrorist act.
It wasn't at the time.
The crowd was peaceful until somebody shot off a flare.
And this was before I was down there.
Somebody shot off a flare.
Yeah, I was going to ask you to backtrack a little bit about where things got incited
and what you understand to have provoked, you know, what was what the earlier things
that were happening that caused a lot of the problems.
It was the police attacking the crowd.
Yes, there were a bazillion people there, but at and I can't remember the exact time
frame, but somebody shot off a flare and it was like that was a signal.
And then the police officers started firing into the crowd just willy nilly, you know,
firing into the crowd with rubber bullets, with concussion grenades, which killed two
people with tear gas, with all kinds of things.
And of course, that's what we see on.
We see the aftermath of that.
We don't see them doing that on the news, but we see the crowd after they're reacting
and responding to feeling like they're being attacked.
Yes, that's what I remember from the footage.
Now I've watched other video footage that was like the more context.
Oh, wait a minute.
And to another thing that's important to note is that there were tons of people that were
already at the Capitol that started at the Capitol that day that didn't go down to the
ellipse to listen to President Trump's speech.
There were about at least 12 different organizations, well known organizations, women for Trump,
Latinos for Trump, Stop the Steal, tons of different groups that all had permits to set
up around the Capitol that day, had their own stages, had their own slate of speakers,
security, all kinds of things.
They all had permits to do that.
And so all of these major groups have tens or hundreds of thousands of followers.
And while President Trump was speaking, all of those permits were revoked.
Now you can't get the word out, especially when they had all of our phones jammed.
And so it was literally walking into a trap because nobody knew, like a lot of people
came to hear just some of those speakers and nobody knew, well, they can't speak anymore.
Right?
Wow.
So there were several groups that were already set up around the Capitol.
And then once the police started firing into the crowd and hurting people that 100% instigated
some of the bad things that happened that day.
So my experience inside the Capitol, when I walked into the rotunda, the first thing
that I saw were a group of people that were in a prayer circle.
And so I went over there and joined them and they were all in tactical gear.
And I found out two years later that those were the oath keepers who have been especially
demonized by the Department of Injustice through this whole thing.
And so my lawyer likes to point out that I always stayed within the red velvet ropes.
And I took pictures and videos and visited with people and sang and all of that.
Well, actually today, for the first time, sorry to interrupt, but I just want to call
this out.
I saw that picture of you and I'm going to put that in the newsletter, but I saw that
picture of you in there and it's like, this is wonderful.
You look like a tourist.
Yes.
You can see how excited I am.
You were smiling ear to ear and like, this is wonderful.
So it wasn't like you were sneaking around, running outside the ropes and trying to duck
and hide for cover is you were on a tour.
Right.
And I walked past police officers through an open door.
And so after I was, I guess done in the Capitol Rotunda, then went over into Statuary Hall,
same situation, family, small children, elderly people, tons of Vietnam veterans.
Those are my favorite humans are Vietnam veterans.
My dad and my uncle are both Vietnam vets.
And, and they still have a lot of fight left in them.
Indeed they do.
And then I was wandering around in the hallways and I was inside for 19 minutes and I was
in the hallway above where Ashley Babbitt was murdered by Capitol police officer, Lieutenant
Michael Byrd.
And people were coming out with blood on their hands saying they killed a girl.
And I thought, well, things are turning.
It's probably time for me to go.
And so I walked out the East side of the Capitol, past police officers through an open door,
just like I'd come in and really, really had no idea at the time of what January 6th would
become.
I went back to the hotel in a few hours and sat down and recorded a 27 minute long Facebook
live video, which I had done every single day since election day to explain to people,
you know, the court cases and what the constitution says and what our options are and all of this
stuff.
And somebody took a one minute clip out of that video where I had particularly bombastic
language and put it on Twitter and that got 7 million views in two days.
And that is what made me infamous, I suppose.
So by God's grace, I had the first flight out the next day, January 7th, and I flew
into Oklahoma City for a business meeting.
Now, let me ask a question about as the day unfolded, did you begin to hear things in
terms of, oh, no, at this point?
No, you're thinking, well, that was odd.
That was weird.
I'm feeling somebody got hurt.
So you knew that you knew there had been somebody hurt, right?
With the blood.
I knew somebody had been hurt.
But so by the time I got back to the hotel, I'd already been protesting for 12 hours in
22 degree weather and was exhausted and I never turned on the news, anything like that.
I just went back to the hotel room and went to bed because I had to get up at 4 a.m. to
get to the airport.
So I had no concept of the other things that had happened that day that I wasn't aware
of, much less how the media would capitalize on those.
And so the next day when I landed in Oklahoma City and turned my phone back on was when
I started getting death threats.
Wow.
And it was because of that video you had posted was going viral.
Yes.
And people were reacting to the out of context clip piece of that.
Yes.
And I was getting death threats and people calling and HBO and CNN and BBC finding my
mother's cell phone number and contacting her.
And it got bad really, really fast.
And I guess to kind of summarize that within 12 hours of that one minute clip being posted,
I had one thousand one star reviews on my flower shop in Midland.
Wow.
And to Google's credit, they took them down because it was such an unusual behavior.
It was a hit job.
Yeah, it was a hit job.
Yeah.
But that of course didn't stop people from even to this day.
And I don't own that business anymore.
Posting one star reviews.
And my employees were terrified.
And we had the phones unplugged for five days because it was just nonstop hate and vitriol
from across the country and international.
This is amazing because I'm very familiar with Midland, Odessa.
My wife grew up in Odessa.
We lived in Midland.
We're in a great church out there.
And so I'm very familiar with the lay of the land there.
It's the middle of nowhere.
It's the middle of the Texas desert heading towards New Mexico and heading towards, you
know, Pecos and all that area.
And so you're kind of on the edge of civilization in Midland, Texas.
But all of a sudden, because of the internet, you're infamous.
Oh, yes.
And I was already well known in Midland.
I mean, literally within hours.
Yes.
And then the bans started happening.
I'm lifetime banned from PayPal and Venmo.
At the time, I was banned from Airbnb, Uber, John Birch Society, a restaurant in Midland
that is no longer there, kicked me out quite publicly and told me I was never allowed back.
You know, different things like that.
And so a week later, to kind of fast forward through my story and get to the good part,
a week later, I was arrested at my flower shop.
I'm number 68 to be arrested out of 1600.
And it was the day that we were set to reopen after having been closed for a week because
no actual customers could get through to us.
And all of my employees were terrified.
None of their families wanted them to come back and work for me.
We didn't know if somebody was going to, you know, organize a protest in front of the shop
or try to hurt us or anything like that.
And about 10 minutes before the day that we were supposed to reopen, the Midland Police
Department showed up and I can tell you all of that was unconstitutional too, but I didn't
know that at the time.
And there were eight police officers and seven vehicles in full tactical gear carrying long
arms and two attack dogs to come arrest little old me, flower shop lady who had run for mayor
two years before and was friends with the chief of police.
And so they take me to the FBI where I invoked my rights.
And then the FBI took me to the US Marshals where I was shackled by my hands, my feet
and around my waist.
And I have nothing good to say about the FBI, but the US Marshals were wonderful.
They were very professional.
They thought the whole thing was ridiculous.
They knew I wasn't a domestic terrorist.
And so they put me in federal holding cell until I was able to get in front of a judge.
At the time, I was only charged with two low level misdemeanors and the judge let me out
on personal recognizance bond and I went back to the flower shop.
And so I was never incarcerated outside of that day.
And a couple of weeks later, by then I'd already hired an attorney, Marina Medvin out of Alexandria
Virginia.
She's wonderful.
She's in the top 5% of constitutional attorneys in the country.
And before me, she had only ever represented criminals.
So let's pause here because I will pick this back up.
I want to know what was your mental state during this time, your emotional state?
I mean, this is like an avalanche that you hear you hear a gun go off or a bomb, you
know how they start avalanches.
And then you hear the rumble and then it's there.
It's on you before you even have time to.
So how are you processing this in real time while all this is unfolding?
Oh, I wasn't.
It was all survival.
Wow.
I didn't deal with the grief and trauma of January 6th until I moved down here to Fredericksburg
15 months ago.
Wow.
My goodness.
Because you can't.
Yeah, it's real time.
You're in survival.
When I was arrested one week later.
Just trying to keep your head above water.
Yes.
They could have extradited me to DC where I would still be in prison today.
They could have held me indefinitely without charges based off of the Patriot Act, which
is the worst thing that's ever happened to our country.
It's a scourge.
Because they immediately labeled all of us as domestic terrorists or radicals or white
supremacists, whatever.
And so that opens it up to where they can hold you indefinitely without charges under
the Patriot Act.
And just they can push the Constitution aside.
Yes.
All your rights are gone.
And so it was all survival because I didn't know where I was going.
So about a week or two after I was arrested, I find out that I was indicted and upcharged.
And so now I was charged with four misdemeanors and a felony.
And the felony charges called the 1512 and it's for corruptly obstructing an official
government proceeding before Congress.
And it was created as a result of the Enron scandal.
And it only has to do with witness tampering and document tampering.
And in June of 2024, the Supreme Court overturned it and said that never should have been used
against January 6th defendants.
It did not apply.
I remember when that was overturned.
Okay.
Well, that didn't matter at the time.
Right.
I mean, I was facing a max of 20 years in prison.
Is the sentence for that?
It was a max of 20 years.
And so my lawyer, Marina, sent me an email now with her felony retainer charge.
Of course, I'd already retained her services.
Wow.
And none of us knew what January 6th was going to turn into.
Right.
And so I get this email and it says $40,000 is the retainer for a felony.
And I went into the bathroom in the flower shop and I sat down on the floor and I cried
because of course I didn't have $40,000 and didn't know what this was going to turn into.
Right.
Just knew that now I was facing prison time.
And some of the things that I've always believed in started running through my mind.
And one of those things is that God didn't bring me this far to drop me on my ass now.
And so I got back up and I went to my computer and I emailed her back and I said, well, I
don't have $40,000, but I've got 15 in savings and I'll send that to you and then put me
on a payment plan.
And she did.
Bless her heart.
So long story short, 10 months later, the Department of Injustice offered me a plea
deal for trespassing that if I would plead guilty to trespassing, then they would drop
all other charges, including that felony.
And that timeframe was very difficult because you're stuck between, well, do I take this
to trial in DC to a jury not of my peers, knowing that I could be convicted on all five
charges or do I say that I'm guilty of trespassing in the people's house?
Something that I don't actually believe that I'm guilty of.
Right.
That's a very difficult spot to be in.
Horrible, horrific place to be in.
And I can tell you that I made a deal with God.
I don't know if God feels the same way, but from my perspective, I made a deal with God
that if I got my consequences of January 6th over sooner, that I would use my voice to
educate people and to tell the truth about what happened that day and to tell the stories
of the people that can't, either because they died that day, they committed suicide
later or because everything can and will be held against you in a court of law.
And so for the last almost three years now, I've traveled all over Texas, Oklahoma and
Alabama speaking to whoever will listen to me and talking about these other January 6th
defendants and talking about the organizations that help them and how people can get involved
and get the truth and watch the free documentaries that are on stophate.com and actually get
educated about what happened.
And so then fast forward to March of 22, I took the plea deal for trespassing, fast forward
to March of 22, I was sentenced.
I had the most conservative judge, Judge Trevor McFadden.
He was a Trump appointee.
And at the time, he was the only one that was relatively level headed.
Now, a lot of my friends went to sentencing with him after I did and every single one
of them got sent to prison.
And he sentenced me to two months federal probation and a $5,000 fine because my words
hurt people.
Wow.
Which used to be covered under the First Amendment.
And I'm not sure who those people, those victims of my words are, but they should get tougher
and learn about the founding of our country.
Amen.
And so I was off of federal probation in May of 22.
And I have one of the lightest sentences of January 6th.
And that's all God business.
You know, I don't know why, but I know I'm going to do something with it.
Well, from what I know, you already are.
Yes.
You're making good on your promise.
You're making good on your covenant.
And I wouldn't even call it a contract.
I would call it a covenant.
You're making good on that because you are.
The way I met you was in our church and somebody said, there's a J6er here.
And I think you either came and introduced yourself or somebody brought you to me.
And we just talked and immediately my heart just melted for you.
Thank you.
It had not been too long since then and I had watched one of those documentaries.
I wish I could recall the name of it.
I have to see the list.
I could tell you which one it was.
And we were just, we were shattered over it.
We were moved over it because all we knew is what the mainstream media and the legacy
media wanted us to know about it.
And of course they showed every angle that was bad and how they portrayed what happened
was so not the actual narrative.
Right.
It's always been the same five clips.
It is.
Yeah.
That legacy media has shown for four years straight.
You're right.
So when I met you and I think we got together not long after that, you sat in our office
and you shared your story with Annette.
And of course we all cried.
I mean, we were all just broken and moved over it because the thing that God has done
in me over even the last few years has been I've fallen in love with America.
I've fallen in love with my nation.
I've always been proud.
And I'm from Texas so I'm doubly proud.
Yes.
Amen.
The Republic of Texas.
And so I've always been proud of it.
But I didn't have the underpinnings that I do now and the knowledge that I have now.
But there's a flip side to that coin.
The deeper I've gone into understanding how things work, it can do one or the other.
Either it's fight or flight.
And a lot of my friends who are pastors have decided to run the other way because it's
too complicated, too layered.
It takes too long to get things done.
And instead of worrying about it, they've just pushed it off to the side.
And now it's a category over here instead of actually something that is a part of their
lives.
And the way I've worded it is this, Judy, I say, and I even said it yesterday, I do
not believe that America is a good idea that God blessed after the fact.
I believe that America is a God idea that we have a responsibility to steward.
And so I've stepped into that space to say, what is my role?
How can I participate in this?
Just like you have over the last 10 years, you've done this for a lot of your life and
your parents taught you to do that.
What is my role?
And that's really one of the calls that I have for people today is find your role, find
your lane.
Is it that God would have you do to steward this God idea, what has been called the great
experiment?
And then do it, run with it, run with gusto and do it in spite of the consequences.
Oh, yes.
And they're going to be different for everybody.
You happen to be, you could say the wrong place at the wrong time, or it could be very
well be.
And I think this is your heart.
I was at the right place at the right time.
Yes.
I want to talk to that.
So when I started speaking publicly in January of 22 before I was even sentenced, so I knew
that everything that I said could really be used against me in a court of law.
I immediately started having and it still happens to this day, having people come up
to me and say, oh, I was supposed to be there that day.
But God told me not to go.
And it used to really bother me because I thought, boy, he didn't tell me not to go.
Am I not listening?
I really wish I'd known because I would not have willingly signed up for the last four
years of this.
Or people would say, oh, I was supposed to go, but then my kid got sick or had a soccer
game or something like that.
And again, it used to really bother me because we're so used to as Americans being lazy
and complacent and having everything handed to us.
And that's a lot of the reason why the government has gotten out of control because we've allowed
them to do it.
And it's easier to just rely on the government to allegedly fix whatever problem, which they
never do.
Well, after all, we elect them so they do what we tell them to do, right?
And they do not.
Exactly.
They do not.
And so that was hard for a long time, especially in the beginning.
And another thing that was very difficult was out of the thousands of people that I
know, almost all of whom I would say are Christians, not one single person ever invited me to go
to church because they were afraid of being judged, bringing the local domestic terrorists
to church.
Wow.
Now I would have strangers in Walmart walk up to me and say, can I pray over you?
Right?
But unfortunately, most people aren't willing to put their image or their reputation on
the line in order to help somebody else.
And so that has fundamentally changed my life.
The first time I met you, I remember saying, thank you.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for what you've done.
And I didn't even know your story at that point.
I just met you.
And as I've met others who have come either through you and others have come in that are
quote, J sixers, I see them as somebody to be thanked, I see them.
Thank you for fighting.
Thank you for standing.
Thank you for not giving in.
Yes.
Not giving up.
Yes.
And not quitting.
And that's to me, it's remarkable and it needs to be praised.
And it breaks my heart to think that other pastors would want you to not be noticed or
not be recognized or to be pushed aside.
I've called you out several times in worship services.
I've called out Masserano from New Braunfels who was part of the Trump train that got indicted.
To me, it's like these are patriots and they're heroes and they're people who are paying the
highest price for simply loving their country and getting caught up in a weaponized system
that is designed to attack and designed to strip them of their rights, their constitutional
rights and ignore what this country was founded upon.
And it's interesting to me because as a pastor, one of the things I've learned from the political
world and life is that if I have somebody that's in opposition to me and they come and
talk to me, I'm like, let's talk.
Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
I'm all in.
I have no problem with pushback or disagreement.
I just have a problem with the way people push back and disagree.
If you're going to weaponize or you're going to castigate somebody or throw them under
the bus or try to diminish their value, then that's where I have a problem.
And so I just want to say thank you to right here, right now for what you've done, what
you're doing.
And now I want to bring it to where we are now because I am so excited about what you're
up to.
Okay.
Sounds like the ceiling is caving in.
It's because Tommy's up above us.
There's a storage area.
Good job, Tommy.
And the way we do it with our podcast is we say, hey, we're at work.
Right.
We're at work.
Whatever you hear, ignore it.
The sky's not falling.
So, so share, just bring us up to speed.
You know, after I got off of federal probation, I've always been very involved with the different
J6 organizations and nonprofits and everything like that.
And I started to realize that there are tons of J6 organizations to help the January 6
defendants, the political hostages today.
You know, there's organizations if you want to write them letters while they're in prison
or if you want to help take care of their wives and children and make sure that they
don't get behind on their mortgage or their transmission doesn't go out, different things
like that.
So let me stop you there because it's important.
So how can we, I know you've become in a sense a hub, almost a clearinghouse if you will,
where if somebody wanted to be able to get in touch with you to say, here's what I have
to help or how can I help, let's go ahead and get that out right now.
What is the best way for people to connect?
Yes.
If you go to j6roadhome.com, then that is where you can get ahold of me or just ask
Pastor Jimmy for my cell phone number and that'll work as well.
I'm not shy about giving out my phone number because CNN, HBO, BBC, everybody's got it.
So it was all public information at one time.
So I realized that all of the J6 organizations that were around at the time were working
on how can we help them today and nobody was working on what do we do with them when they
get out.
Because very quickly after I was sentenced in March of 22, we started realizing that
everybody is going to prison.
Everybody, it doesn't matter what you did and it might only be for 30 days or whatever,
but everybody is going to prison.
So Jeanne, let's pick right back up on the, is it.org or.com?
J6roadhome.com.
Wonderful.
We want you to check that out and go to that website.
What are they going to find on the website?
So what we have created is a comprehensive healing program to where the J6ers can come
and rebuild their lives after prison.
So that's what I was saying about there were plenty of organizations to take care of them
today while they are incarcerated, but nobody was working on what to do with them when they
get out.
We call that after care.
When I was in the, I worked with Child Protective Services.
I worked for foster care agencies.
I ran a foster care agency.
So I've done a lot of this work.
That was the biggest weakness in the system.
Oh yes.
Is when they aged out, we would call it in terms of a little different terminology, but
same effect.
At 18 they age out of the system and there is nothing.
There was nothing for them.
We were a part of, I worked for Buckner Children's Home.
We started developing an after care program.
Exactly what you're doing.
We found out very few people were doing this.
They were getting, instead of lost in the system, they were getting to become a part
of another system.
Right.
So anyway.
So this is the, I believe, God idea that I've been working on since I got off of probation
two and a half years ago is how can I, not me of course, but how can I build something
that's big enough to where we can house them and feed them and employ them and help them
rebuild their lives.
And it looks to me from the outside looking in, this is happening.
Oh, it's happening so fast.
What I mentioned, avalanche earlier in a negative way.
This is avalanche in a positive way.
So share what you guys have got going out there in Lucanbach.
It's amazing.
So God brought us down here in September of 23 and gave us 11 acres out there by Lucanbach.
And I've wanted to live in Fredericksburg when I was eight years old and I've looked at real
estate for 32 years and kept being drawn to this specific property.
And now I know why.
Wow.
Right.
So we have plenty of room to grow.
And about a month ago, which would be early December, was when we officially launched
our website, j6roadhome.com and started going on podcasts and interviews and radio and all
that kind of stuff and publicizing it.
And the outpouring of support from the community has just been nuts.
So what we're doing is we're building five tiny homes so that everybody will have their
own space.
And then in the process of us living here in Fredericksburg for the last 15 months,
we have built this network of people that are offering jobs from Houston to Midland.
Beautiful.
And now after launching our website, I also have employers across the country contacting
me and saying, hey, I've got a job in Georgia.
I've got a job in Pennsylvania, which is great because there are 1,600 January 6th
defendants.
Wow.
And we've lost everything.
So almost everybody that had a small business lost their small business, especially if they
lived in a more liberal area.
And then early on, a lot of the wives were forced to sell their homes in hopes that they
could hire a decent private attorney thinking that that would have a result and an influence
on the outcome, which it didn't.
You're going to prison.
And so now they don't have any assets, anything like that.
There are out of 1,600 of us, there are 186 veterans.
And for the vast majority of them, the VA has cut off their benefits.
Oh my goodness.
And their families have been fighting that while their loved ones incarcerated.
They have gotten especially horrible treatment.
I have to hope and believe and pray that with the new leadership coming in, hopefully confirmed
today, that should be confirmed today from the electors and the Congress and then the
20th of January, 14 days from now, hopefully some of those things will be changed and restored.
Yes.
And I don't want to get you ahead of your story, but I do want to get to-
I will cover that though.
Thank you very much.
I will cover that.
Good.
So just some of the miracles that have happened since we have launched our j6roadhome.com
website.
We now through other J6 organizations have a nationwide telehealth organization in place
with doctors, licensed professional counselors that are donating all of their time and services.
We have had neighbors come out just last week and offered to pay for a water well and septic,
which is enormous because we have to have that infrastructure.
Absolutely.
Yes.
We have had some beautiful contractors here in town, Edwin Brooks and Brandon Crozier,
who have not only donated all of their time and services, but also found other subcontractors
that are willing to donate for welding or framing or different trades.
I know a plumber you can talk to.
Oh, good.
Because we don't have a plumber that has volunteered yet.
Got one here, Kevin Lenz.
And then also Edwin and Brandon have gone out to all of their vendors that they buy
building supplies from and have started getting donations through that.
We are going to have our first Tony house up by January 20th.
So we've already done the concrete and the welding and we're framing today.
Well they are framing today while I'm talking to you inside.
And we will have it completely done by January 20th because we are expecting that President
Trump, he has mentioned it many times, that President Trump is going to give all of us
a pardon of innocence.
There's two types of pardons.
There's pardon of forgiveness, which is what most pardons are, and a pardon of innocence,
which has only ever happened one time.
And it's when President Trump gave General Flynn a pardon of innocence.
And so we are expecting that President Trump will give us a pardon of innocence.
And if that is the case, then the Bureau of Presidents only has until midnight on January
20th to release our people.
So I'm glad you said that because that was something that really struck me when we talked
about this before is that depending on what time of day it happens, I mean they could
be within hours of walking out.
So there's a lot of pre-preparation that needs to happen.
Yes.
Transportation, where are they going to go?
Who's picking them up?
I mean the logistics of this and how many thousands, how many people are we talking
about?
So there's currently about 238 that are incarcerated.
Now that's across the country.
And so via the Constitution, President Trump gets sworn into office at noon Eastern time
on January 20th and has said that within nine minutes, which is the ride from the swearing-in
ceremony outside of the Capitol to the head of the parade is nine minutes.
And he did this last time too.
He had a whole bunch of executive orders in the limo that he started signing.
On the way?
Yes.
Wow.
Because there's no need in wasting time.
And so through some of our other J6 organizations, we now have a network of volunteers that are
going to every single federal prison that has one of our people in it on January 20th
to wait in the parking lot and hopefully see the prison doors swing open.
And so I have several rooms blocked off at our place through our B&B because I anticipate
that I may have four or five J6ers straight out of prison that show up at 2 a.m. and are
in limbo.
Some of them do have families still.
Some of them do have places to go.
But the closest prison to us is Bastrop and that has five J6ers in it.
So there could be an interim time where they need to stay a day or two or to reorient,
get transportation to where they're going, whatever.
And I'm going to cook them all a steak dinner.
Beautiful.
So yes, back to the community and how the community has stepped up with our...
And I want to remind our community listening to this podcast, you can help.
You can get involved.
This is something that we can all do and take part in.
And so we want to encourage you to go to j6roadhome.com and get in touch.
There's a contact page on here.
I'm looking over the website as we talk.
And you can get in touch with Jenny and Doug and let them know, hey, this is how...
How can I help?
Or this is what I have to help?
This is what I can bring.
And so I want to encourage you that are listening to do that right now.
Don't think I'll do it later.
Do it now while you're thinking about it.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
And there's so many different...
People have gotten so creative.
I just love it.
I love when a community comes together to support somebody.
We have had two vehicles donated.
Beautiful.
Which is great because then those first couple guys that come will have something to drive.
We already have counseling in place, pastoral care.
Several different jobs, different things like that.
And then I've gotten emails from people saying, hey, can I just mail you a Visa gift card?
Absolutely.
Beautiful.
I had a little old lady ask if she could order me two sets of queen sheets from my pillow.com.
It all works.
It all matters.
It's all needed.
Yes.
And I'm beautiful.
I am going to ask Mike Lindell if he will donate all sheets and pillows and towels.
I just haven't made that call yet.
And then of course, Rick Green at the Patriot Academy, he supports us.
Dear friend of ours.
And I told him last night when I was on his show that there's a lot of J6ers that are
talking about running for office.
And there's no greater person to run for office than somebody who has suffered at the hands
of the government.
And I'm like, so I really need to talk to you about having our people that come to live
with us go through all of your courses and learn all of the back founding fathers, constitution
front and back, like all of that stuff.
Our constitutional awareness class.
We'll be running that again this next year.
So there's a million ways to get involved.
A million ways to get involved.
I can tell you what I really need that keeps popping up in my mind as I need a dentist.
We already have telehealth as far as medical doctors go, but I need a dentist here in town
that's willing to see people.
None of them have insurance, right?
None of them have money.
If they're willing to see them for cash, then I will go and fundraise the cash in order
to pay for it.
But I know that's something for sure that we need here.
We also have a lot of guys that are going to be coming to live with us that are no longer
going to be able to operate in their profession because they lost their license as a result
of January 6th, whether it was pilot's license, real estate license, home inspector, different
things like that.
And so there's a lot of them that are interested in learning trades.
And one of the things that just happened the last couple of days, which is really neat,
a J6 mom reached out to me and said, hey, my son's in prison right now and he lost his
license as a result of January 6th, but he's very interested in learning how to be a welder.
Do you have that option available?
Well, I don't currently, but I can figure it out.
And then come to find out there is a welding school in Oregon that has contacted one of
our sister J6 organizations that has said we will waive all tuition, everything for
the J6ers if they want to come up here and learn this trade.
So there's a million different ways to get involved.
If you have two pennies that are burning a hole in your pocket, we would ask that you
would donate them to the Bridge Church under the Road Home Benevolence.
We're eternally grateful to y'all for providing that opportunity for people.
Well, literally it's the least we can do to help and to get involved and to get you connected
with somebody that can help in other ways.
I know the Lord is so good.
One of the words for God is Elohim.
And it means the creative nature of God.
It's the creativity piece.
We call it the Elohim element.
We all have it.
And when we are leaning in to help one another and serve people and serve others, God brings
creative, you're seeing it.
You're in the avalanche of it right now of creativity and things that you're having conversations
with contractors and people that you never thought you would ever have a conversation
with.
But the creativity just explodes.
When God's in the middle of something, this is why I know God's all over it.
I see His fingerprint on this.
I see the joy you and Doug have in serving and being available.
You're making good on your covenant.
And God's honoring that by bringing all these resources to you from just so many different
directions.
I'm sure you're, I can't even imagine your inboxes right now.
It's wild.
I hope with this we can get more and more, fill your box up even more with opportunities,
with needs.
I've written down dentists, plumber.
I'm thinking of things that you need right now here.
And so God's creative.
They're there.
It's just a matter of getting the word out to them.
And so I've got a couple ideas I'm going to follow up on.
One of the things that you mentioned earlier about getting more educated as a person on
the constitution, the founding fathers and all that kind of stuff is, you know, you have
to be real careful of education.
Yes.
Agreed.
When you learn something, then you are then responsible for it and you have a duty to
it.
You can either run and put your head in the sand and act like you didn't know that, or
you can do something about it.
And so I feel a very, as you can tell, a very strong sense of duty to make sure that I get
myself together, right?
That I go through the healing process.
I go through the grief and trauma.
I go through the spiritual battles, all of that kind of stuff.
I start the process of forgiveness, of forgiving the federal government.
That's a big one.
Because I have this strong sense of duty that I'm going to be taking somebody else through
that.
Yes.
And so it's not like I wake up one day and I say, oh gosh, I'm not doing anything.
I think I'll learn how to forgive the federal government.
Right?
That didn't happen.
I was the direct result of coming here to talk to Pastor Brian Mandel because I was
so impressed that y'all had that Comedy in the Constitution event because I have long
fought churches for not being involved in the culture.
Yeah.
With good reason.
For good reasons.
Yes.
Yeah.
And when I came to that Comedy in the Constitution event that next day, I called the church and
I said, I need to speak with your head pastor.
Yeah.
I was going through a month.
Yup.
And so I met with Brian and talked Brian's face off for two hours about January 6 and
what we're doing and all the people and everything.
And then at the very end of it, Naomi walked in and she hadn't heard anything that I said.
Right?
And Brian said, Jenny, this is my life.
Naomi, she's a prayer warrior.
And then he said, Naomi, this is Jenny.
She's a January 6th defendant and she helps other January 6th defendants.
And that's all he said.
And Naomi asked if she could pray over me.
It radically changed my life.
Beautiful.
Because she started praying things that there is no way that she could have known.
And I know because that's the Holy Spirit.
Right?
Absolutely.
About like health issues, like things that I just met this lady.
Right?
And so she gets done praying.
I'm of course crying because I'm a crier anyway.
And I looked at her and I said, I would like to be your friend.
She gave me your phone number.
And I said, I know that you didn't know those things that you just prayed about.
And she goes, Jenny, I don't usually talk to people than I just met about forgiveness.
But you need to forgive the federal government.
And I'm crying and crying.
Oh, it's huge.
And I said, And it's true.
Yes.
And I said, I don't know how to.
And she starts explaining it to me.
And to me, one of the greatest examples of spiritual discernment I have ever witnessed
happened in that conversation.
She's explaining to me how it is that I need to start forgiving the federal government.
And I looked at her and I said, I pray every day that they'll burn in hell for all of eternity.
And instead of judging me or condemning me or telling me that I shouldn't be wishing
people to hell or anything like that, she goes, that's okay.
They probably will.
But you didn't deserve forgiveness.
And you got it.
And she explained to me what's bound on earth is bound in heaven.
What's loose on earth is loose in heaven.
And she goes, you will forever be bound to them.
That's why you have these health problems that I had at the time that are now completely
healed.
Because you are bound in this realm and bound in the spiritual realm to the federal government,
which is a very large entity, because you're not willing to forgive them.
Right?
You didn't deserve it.
They don't deserve it.
You still have to do it.
It's called mercy.
Yes.
And that completely changed my life.
When I went home and my husband was getting things ready to open up that evening, and
I walked in and I said, I've got to go down to the creek side.
I have to go forgive the federal government.
I'll be back when I get back.
See you tomorrow.
And so I went down to the creek and I did the best I could.
And I listened to some sermons on forgiveness and all of that.
And thankfully, Naomi had told me that I was probably going to have to do it like several
thousand times.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And I think about what the federal government has done to me.
It's what they have done to my friends.
And the next day was when the federal government tried to assassinate President Trump.
And I thought, oh gosh, well, I better go back down to the creek again and work on this.
Spent a lot of time down at the creek.
But I'm so excited about these guys that are coming here.
And we may wind up having ladies too.
I don't know.
I think it's men of January 6th, defendants are men, that are coming here because I've
at least cracked the door to the best of my ability of how to forgive the federal government.
And they also have to go through that.
And I'm going to be counting on you and everybody here at the bridge.
Absolutely.
To help walk these people through this.
Absolutely.
We're here for that.
And we're here to support, encourage, to build them up and to love them.
To show them that there are churches out there that love them.
That will not castigate or judge them.
Because to whom much is given, much is required.
And so I'm a mercy guy.
I'm a grace guy.
That's why I have our invisible sign on the wall that says no perfect people allowed.
Because I'm one of those.
I couldn't be the pastor here if that wasn't the case.
So there's a huge group of people here ready to love them, even if we only have them for
a day.
We just see them one Sunday.
Do not neglect to introduce them to me.
Oh, I will.
I will walk up and I will say this is one of my people.
You can interrupt all those other people I'm talking to.
Unless it's Ross that you saw.
Yes.
He's precious.
But I'm going to give Ross all the time he needs.
But really, I want to know them.
I want to meet them.
I want to be able to just simply thank them for their service.
Because they have unwittingly, unknowingly, they have paid a high price to advance and
create a mark in history.
This will not be forgotten.
This will not just be glossed over even though there are a lot of people who want it to be.
This will need to be kept in front of the American people so that this kind of travesty
doesn't happen again to innocent Americans.
So we need to keep this alive.
This is one of the reasons why I wanted you on the podcast today.
Because I want to be better informed too.
I want to continue to grow and learn and get the nuances from you and others.
Anything we can do to encourage you, support you and Doug.
I love Doug.
He's the silent partner man.
Oh, he is.
He's quiet but he's cool.
I love your husband.
He's amazing.
Thank you.
When I pray for you, I'll pray for him too.
Because he's bearing weight that people don't see.
He's behind the scenes.
You're the voice and the face.
He has to put up with all my crazy ideas and moving convicts in and all kinds of stuff.
Hey, I'm married to somebody like that myself.
I'm married to an ideologist.
So I get it.
But it's our privilege to do so.
But I know Doug's heart.
Just in the little time I've been around him, I see that heart and I see his support.
So it's not Jenny or Doug.
It's Doug and Jenny together.
Right.
Absolutely.
We are a team.
I'm glad that God gave me this idea and this calling.
And I'm also, I mean, quite frankly, glad that my people are 1600 people.
Because in my mind, that's very manageable.
You have a huge family.
And it's not one you signed up to be a part of.
You didn't will yourself into this.
But for whatever reason, for such a time as this, as Mordecai told Esther, for such a
time as this, perhaps this is why you're born.
And I'm not saying this is your only imprint on this world.
You've been imprinting the world since you were three years old.
But this is one that will be a large marker in your life.
And I think you may spend the rest of your life.
I think the implications of what has happened here will inform the rest of your life, will
inform your purpose for the rest of your life.
And I'm just thankful that we get to be a small part of it somehow, some way.
And I, we're going to land the plane now today, unless there's one last thing.
I'm going to give you one more shot.
If there's any last thing you'd like to cover or say, I would like for you to just tell
me your thoughts about January 20th and what do you think the impact is going to be when
you get the news for you personally?
Oh gosh.
I've thought about that a million times about what it's going to feel like when I get a
presidential pardon.
Because on my record, I just have a misdemeanor conviction for federal trespassing on the
people's house.
So a presidential pardon, I keep saying this, and this is based off of the information I
have today, right?
I keep saying that a presidential pardon won't have a large impact on my life compared to
some of my friends who are veterans that have felony convictions and all of that.
But it is some strange form of vindication of knowing that I wasn't crazy.
I went to DC on January 6th, four years ago, because I was supposed to.
It's like that tapestry analogy.
God gets to see the front of the tapestry and we only get to see the backside and you
might just be this little black knot over here, right?
Or you may be this beautiful golden thread that goes all the way through the whole thing,
but we don't get to see the front of the tapestry.
But we all have a role to play in it.
And it took a good long time.
It wasn't until maybe a year ago that I started saying, I'm grateful that I'm a January 6th
defendant.
There were 1.7 million people, only 1600 of us got arrested.
And I'm grateful that I'm a January 6th defendant because of who it made me become and how it
forced me to draw nearer to God, because there's no other option in the darkness, right?
And because of what I know I will be able to do in order to help transform somebody
else's life.
And so I don't regret any of the pain and suffering and the prosecution and the persecution
and the rejection and any of that kind of stuff, because I absolutely believe that nothing,
really nothing happens in God's world by mistake and nothing is wasted in God's economy.
He can take our darkest days.
He could take whatever terrible things in our past and turn it into our greatest asset,
because the people that have the scars, those are the people I want to hang out with because
I know they've been through it and they have the ability to help somebody else.
And every single person has that, regardless of if it's death, divorce, prosecution, I
mean health issues, whatever it is, once we have survived something by God's grace, it
is our responsibility and our duty to help walk somebody else through that.
Jenny, I love that.
I absolutely agree.
I heard it said this way one time that we've been to hell and back, but we don't smell
like smoke.
That residue is no longer in our lives.
The only residue that's there is there so that we don't forget.
But God's healing, when God's healing is complete and pure and through, it doesn't mean you
forget what happened.
It's now you don't see it as a failure.
You don't see it as a mistake.
And failure is never failure if you're learning from it.
And so we're learning from these scars, these things, these wounds from our past.
And just in the time I've known you, and even I was struck by something you said that you
really didn't begin your grief and your healing process until you moved here.
And that's where, so that means in 15 months, there's been a whole lot of healing.
Oh, good heavens, yes.
And I see it.
I see it on you.
I see it in you.
And I see that being fleshed out.
I talked about yesterday of faith and faith, the result of faith is action.
It's not faith unless there's action attached.
I was the one out in the congregation yelling, come on, when you were talking about that.
I think I heard you.
So Jenny, thank you so much for being here today.
This will not be our last podcast together.
When I love people, I want to be around them and I want more time with them.
And so I think we need to look at doing another special edition, Living Up and Down World
together after the 20th.
Yes, and after my first two people come that are heading this way.
Beautiful.
We'll do that.
We'll catch up in, say, February, early February.
Let's circle back and let's celebrate and let's talk about what's happened because I
know in the next few weeks, like I said, it's an avalanche right now, but it's an avalanche
of goodness.
It's an avalanche of good people showing up and saying, I'm here to help.
And I believe that, I think it's just getting started.
Oh, yes.
I am expecting signs, miracles and wonders in the coming days.
Amen.
Thank you folks for joining us today.
It's been Pastor Jimmy Pruitt with Jenny McCombs.
I have to say my favorite J6er.
Thank you.
I know a few now, but you definitely got a big place in my heart and Annette's.
And family, I want to invite you to go to livingupandandownworld.com.
You can get all things related to us, messages online.
You can get our daily devotional under blog there.
And you can sign up for our newsletter that we send out just to, we don't want to end
a date your inbox.
We just want to let you know that something's coming and we've got another podcast on the
way.
So again, thank you for listening.
We love you and we appreciate you.
We're here for you.
Keep living up in a down world.
Jenny, thank you so much.
I see those tears, but I think they're tears of joy right now.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
And tears of gratitude.
God bless you.