I have changed the names of those involved, and obscured some identifying details out of respect to the privacy of those involved. All of this is based on my memory, which obviously can be faulty. But it’s the best of my recollection and knowledge at this point. – Author’s Note

Part I: The Morning Everything Changed

My ten-year-old burst into the room, eyes wide with the particular alarm children reserve for genuinely unprecedented events. “Dad, the FBI is at the Hendersons’.”

Not the Hendersons, I thought reflexively. Then the name registered properly, and my stomach dropped. “Whose house?’’ I exclaimed.

“Todd’s house.”

I moved to the rear window of our home, which sits a couple hundred feet back Todd Henderson’s house. What I saw looked like a scene from a television drama I’d accidentally stepped into. The three-acre lot was swarming with vehicles—sedans and SUVs choking the long driveway, at least half a dozen, maybe more. I counted roughly twenty people moving with the efficient purposefulness of federal agents executing a warrant.

Todd Henderson was more than a neighbor. Over the decade our families had lived near each other, he’d become one of my closest friends. Our children had grown up together, moving through the rituals of suburban childhood in tandem—birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, sports leagues. His wife and mine had become confidantes. We’d shared countless dinners, helped each other through home repairs, and celebrated holidays together. Todd was the kind of person who showed up when you needed help, who remembered details about your life, who made you want to be better.

He was also a retired law enforcement officer, having served for over two decades before leaving the force to start a business. When I saw the FBI presence, my first irrational thought was that it must involve someone else on our street—a neighbor who had many run-ins with the law.

I called Todd’s cell. Voicemail. Then his wife, Sarah.

She answered on the third ring, her voice tight and strange. “Mike was arrested on the road. I have to go.” The line went dead.

From my window, I watched the agents work. They were there for hours. Every so often I’d see flashes from the windows—dozens of them, like distant lightning—as they photographed the interior of the home. Sarah later told me they went through everything. Everything. They photographed bookshelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and opened every cabinet. They left with several boxes of materials.

The calm of our neighborhood—the predictable rhythm of lawn mowing and school buses and dog walks—died that morning.

When Todd and I finally spoke, a day later, the story emerged in fragments. He’d been driving on a surface road when multiple vehicles boxed him in. Agents emerged with guns drawn, ordered him from his car, and arrested him at gunpoint. They took him to a nearby FBI field office.

There, they showed him photographs: stills from videos.

In the images, Todd looked like someone I didn’t recognize. His face was contorted with rage. His fist was raised, clutching what appeared to be a black object. The agents pointed out his proximity to barricaded police lines. They accused him of assaulting officers. There were more photos: Todd’s foot on a fallen bike-rack barricade. Another showing him pushing the barricade toward a line of police.

“I have no recollection of anything they showed me,” Todd told me, bewildered. “My experience was nothing like what they’re presenting.”

Then he revealed something that made the arrest even more disturbing. A few months after January 6th, 2021, FBI agents had approached him in his driveway. They knew he’d been at the Capitol. They wanted to hear his story. Todd, being Todd—a former cop who believed in cooperating with law enforcement—told them everything. He described what he’d done, what he’d observed. He mentioned that police tactics seemed to have instigated the crowd, that he’d noticed what appeared to be undercover officers encouraging people to storm the Capitol. The agents listened, took notes, and told him that if he didn’t hear back within a couple of months, the matter was closed.

He heard nothing. For nearly two years, nothing. He’d kept the encounter quiet, not wanting to worry his family.

Now, in early 2023, they’d come back with guns drawn and handcuffs.

He was indicted via Zoom, released on bond, and sent home to wait.

I need to pause here and explain something about January 6th and my own relationship to it, because it matters for what comes next.

Like most Americans, I watched the events at the Capitol unfold on television with mounting horror. I saw the images: crowds breaching barricades, people scaling walls, the chaos inside the building. I heard the accounts of officers injured, of the Vice President rushed to safety, of lawmakers sheltering in place. I watched the videos of rioters rampaging through the halls of Congress, rifling through desks, sitting in the Senate chamber. I saw the Confederate flag paraded through the Capitol rotunda. I heard a woman get shot trying to break through a barricaded door.

It looked like an insurrection. It felt like one. For days and weeks afterward, I consumed the coverage voraciously—the arrests, the investigations, the stories of radicalization and conspiracy theories. I read about the planning in right-wing online forums, the rhetoric about civil war, the calls to prevent the certification of electoral votes by any means necessary.

I was disturbed. Deeply disturbed. This wasn’t partisan—this was about the peaceful transfer of power, about the foundations of democratic governance. People had attacked the Capitol. Whatever grievances they believed they had, whatever they thought the election had been, you don’t storm Congress. You don’t assault police officers. You don’t try to stop the constitutional process with violence.

And now my friend—my good, decent, law-and-order friend—was being charged as one of those people.

The cognitive dissonance was crushing. Todd Henderson was possibly the last person I would have imagined involved in political violence. He wasn’t a radical. He didn’t rant about conspiracies. He was measured, thoughtful, fundamentally committed to order and safety. He’d spent two decades enforcing the law. His entire identity was built around service, protection, always doing the right thing.

When he’d invited me to join him on a bus trip to Washington for what he described as President Trump’s final speech, I’d declined—I hate buses, crowds, being in the cold, and just wasn’t interested. But I knew Todd’s motivation wasn’t to “stop the steal” or participate in any kind of protest. See, Todd isn’t on social meda: he loathes the idea. He has a very outdated flip-phone. He’s as Old-School as they come. He wanted to hear a speech by his favorite President, to pay his respects. Todd always pays respects: a hospital visit, a funeral service, tending to a grieving widow, he never misses an opportunity. That was it. The idea that he would riot, that he would assault fellow officers, was incomprehensible.

Yet here were the photographs. Here were the charges: two felonies for civil disorder and obstructing police during civil unrest, plus four misdemeanors for entering restricted grounds and disorderly conduct. The potential sentence was twenty years or more.

How do you reconcile the person you know with the evidence being presented? How do you hold both truths—that January 6th was a dangerous assault on democratic norms, and that your friend, who you’d trust with your children’s safety, might have been part of it?

I didn’t know. I was torn, confused, grieving in a strange way for both my country and my friend.

Part II: The Government’s Case

Let me present what the government alleged, what the media reported, what became the official narrative of Todd Henderson’s involvement in January 6th. This is drawn from Department of Justice filings, FBI evidence, and the dozens of news articles that covered his case from arrest through sentencing.

According to federal prosecutors, Todd Henderson traveled to Washington, D.C., on January 6th, 2021, to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. He boarded a bus with other supporters of President Trump, arriving in time for the speech at the Ellipse.

But he didn’t stay for the entire speech. He was so far back that he couldn’t even hear the speech. He left early and made his way to the Capitol building, arriving ahead of much of the crowd.

What happened next, according to the government, demonstrated consciousness of wrongdoing and deliberate participation in a violent assault on law enforcement:

At the barricades: Video evidence from cell phones posted on YouTube, prosecutors argued, showed Todd at the forefront of the mob as it approached the initial police line at the Peace Circle. He was among the first to breach the bike-rack barricades that Capitol Police had established to keep the crowd back. Stills from videos captured him pushing against the barriers as officers attempted to hold the line. Multiple photographs showed him with his fist raised, yelling at police. In one image, he appeared to be holding an unidentified black object. FBI analysts identified him stomping on a fallen barricade, then pushing it toward retreating officers.

Aggressive conduct: Witnesses—both officers and other defendants who cooperated with investigators—described a chaotic, violent scene. Todd was captured on video gesturing aggressively, at one point flashing his finger toward police lines. He yelled at officers as they fell back under the pressure of the mob. His body language, prosecutors argued, showed hostility and intent to intimidate.

Entry into the Capitol: After the initial breach, Todd made his way to the Capitol building itself. He entered through the Senate Wing doors, passing through areas where windows had been smashed and doors forced open. Security footage tracked him walking through the Crypt, moving through crowds of rioters. He remained inside for approximately six minutes before exiting.

False statements to investigators: When FBI agents first approached Todd months after January 6th, he allegedly minimized his involvement. He claimed he’d been 40 to 50 feet away from the police lines, merely an observer. He suggested the riot had been a “set up,” implying that undercover officers or agents provocateurs had instigated the violence. He criticized police tactics despite his own law enforcement background. And when asked why he entered the Capitol, he told agents he’d been looking for a restroom—an excuse prosecutors characterized as insulting and absurd given the context.

The government’s theory was straightforward: Todd Henderson, as a former police officer, knew exactly what he was doing. He understood crowd dynamics, understood use of force, understood when a line was being breached. He wasn’t a confused bystander swept up in events. He was an active participant who lent his presence—and his training—to a violent mob attempting to stop the constitutional process of certifying electoral votes. His subsequent attempts to minimize his role and blame others demonstrated consciousness of guilt.

The media coverage largely echoed this narrative, as it should have if the government’s case was accurate. Headlines across local and national outlets framed the story with clear moral weight.

The stories emphasized the irony—the betrayal, even—of a law enforcement officer participating in an attack on fellow officers. They quoted extensively from DOJ filings describing Todd.

His law enforcement background featured prominently in every story. The subtext was clear: he should have known better. He had taken an oath to protect and serve. He had brothers in blue fighting to defend the Capitol. His participation was a profound betrayal of everything he’d supposedly stood for during his career.

The bathroom explanation was treated with the skepticism it appeared to deserve. Why would someone looking for a restroom need to breach police barricades? Why would they continue forward into the Capitol through broken windows and forced doors? The explanation seemed obviously false, a transparent attempt to minimize criminal conduct.

As the case proceeded toward trial, coverage continued. When Todd was acquitted of the two felony obstruction charges but convicted on four misdemeanors, the acquittals were noted, but the convictions remained central. He had unlawfully entered restricted grounds. He had engaged in disorderly conduct. He had participated in the riot, even if the government couldn’t prove beyond reasonable doubt that he’d specifically intended to obstruct police officers in their duties.

At sentencing, prosecutors pushed for eleven months in prison. Their sentencing memo, quoted extensively in news coverage, argued that deterrence was essential given ongoing distrust in election integrity and the possibility of future violence. They noted that Todd had initially refused to take full accountability, that he’d blamed police, that his conduct was troubling given his training and experience. They characterized him as someone who had chased retreating officers and invaded the Capitol as part of a violent mob.

The judge ultimately sentenced him to two years of probation, including many days of home confinement with electronic monitoring, plus fines and restitution for Capitol damages. It was a lenient sentence compared to what prosecutors sought, but still a conviction, still a criminal record, still punishment for participating in one of the darkest days in modern American history.

And then, in January 2025, President Trump pardoned him as part of a blanket clemency for January 6th defendants. Even then, news coverage continued to identify him as one of the “Capitol rioters” who’d been pardoned, one of the people who’d been “among the first to breach” police lines that day.

This was the narrative. I read these stories when they were published. I saw the photographs the media outlets used—the raised fist, the aggressive posture, the middle finger. I read the quotes from prosecutors about his minimizing and blame-shifting.

And sitting with all of it, knowing Todd, I struggled. Because nothing about that narrative—even if every factual allegation was true—squared with the man I knew. The man who coached youth sports and went out of his way to help neighbors. The man who’d taught me, by example, to think about what the right thing to do was in difficult situations. The man whose fundamental decency had shaped how I tried to live my own life.

Could a good person do a bad thing? Of course. Could someone make catastrophically poor decisions in a moment of passion or confusion? Absolutely. Could my friend have been caught up in something terrible and made choices he shouldn’t have?

Maybe. I didn’t want to believe it. But I also didn’t want to be one of those people who reflexively defends someone just because I know them personally, who ignores evidence because it’s uncomfortable.

So when Todd told me he was considering accepting a plea deal—maybe a couple years in prison for crimes he insisted he didn’t commit—I faced a choice.

I could trust the system. Trust that prosecutors had the evidence, that the judicial process would sort truth from fiction, that if Todd was being charged it must be because he’d done something seriously wrong.

Or I could trust what I knew of Todd’s character, his integrity, his fundamental nature—and push him to fight.

“Don’t let them win,” I told him in what felt like a fateful conversation. “Don’t let them take away your reputation. You need to fight this. We need the truth to be told.”

He hired an expensive, nationally prominent defense attorney—someone who’d been on television countless times, who had a reputation for taking on the federal government in high-profile cases. Even the attorney, initially, struggled to believe Todd’s account. The photographs were damning. The evidence seemed overwhelming.

But something made Todd decide to fight. Maybe it was my encouragement. Maybe it was his own sense that the truth mattered more than the expedient path. Maybe it was the knowledge that his child would grow up with whatever version of events became official.

So we began to investigate. Not just Todd and his attorney, but his family and me as well. We spent hundreds of collective hours watching January 6th footage on YouTube and other platforms. We found every video in which Todd appeared. We timestamped his movements, building a minute-by-minute reconstruction of where he was and what he was doing.

What we found didn’t match the government’s narrative.

Not even close.

Part III: What I Saw

The trial took place in the summer of 2024. I flew to Washington, D.C., to attend. I needed to see this for myself.

The courtroom was exactly what you’d imagine a federal courtroom to be—wood paneling, high ceilings, the seal of the District Court prominently displayed, an atmosphere of formality and consequence. This was a bench trial, meaning no jury—just a federal judge evaluating the evidence and rendering a verdict. Judge Amit Mehta, who’d presided over numerous January 6th cases, sat elevated at the bench, listening carefully as both sides presented their cases.

The prosecution went first, as they always do. They built the narrative I’ve already described: a former police officer who should have known better, who actively participated in breaching police lines, who entered the Capitol as part of a violent mob, who later lied to investigators about his minimal involvement.

They showed the photographs—still images from the YouTube videos we were now very familiar with. There was Todd, fist raised, face contorted. There he was again, foot on a fallen barricade. Another image showed him near retreating police officers, appearing to yell at them. They were damning images, exactly the kind that had been used in countless news stories.

A Capitol Police officer testified about his experience that day—the terror, the sense of being overwhelmed, the trauma that lingered. On cross-examination, Todd’s attorney asked the officer if he recognized Todd Henderson specifically. The officer admitted he did not. He’d seen thousands of people that day; he couldn’t identify this particular defendant from his personal experience.

The FBI agent who’d arrested Todd testified next. He described the investigation, the evidence collected, the interview where Todd had allegedly minimized his role and made the bathroom excuse. He walked through the photographs methodically, building the case that Todd had been at the forefront of the mob, that his actions had contributed to the breach.

I recognized the agent. We’d crossed paths before—either through our children’s sports leagues or some community event. It was jarring, seeing someone I vaguely knew from normal suburban life presenting evidence against my closest friend in a federal criminal trial.

Then the defense began.

Todd’s attorney started showing videos. Not still photographs, but the actual video footage from which those damning images had been extracted. Obviously, the FBI had the videos: that’s from where their images were taken. They never shared them with the defense.

The difference between the videos and still images was revelatory. Shocking, even.

The walk to the Capitol: Video showed Todd walking from the Ellipse toward the Capitol building at a brisk but relaxed pace—the way he always walks, purposeful but not hurried, not aggressive. He was ahead of much of the crowd, but not because he was rushing to be at the front of any assault. He’d been positioned far from the stage during Trump’s speech—so far he couldn’t see or hear anything. Word had filtered back through the crowd that people should head to the Capitol where there would be additional speeches. So he walked, arriving earlier simply because he had less distance to cover.

Along the way, video captured him bending down to pick something up from the sidewalk. He approached a line of bike-rack barricades where police officers stood, relaxed, nothing happening yet. He handed something to an officer. The attorney zoomed in. It was a belt clip—the kind police use to hold batons or other equipment.

A few moments later, same thing. Todd picked up something else from the ground, walked to the barricade, handed it to another officer.

On the stand, a Capitol Police officer admitted he’d lost his equipment that day. Specifically, he’d lost his baseball cap. This was a big deal, he testified. Losing any piece of issued equipment required extensive paperwork and could have career implications. It was a significant problem.

Todd testified in his own defense, explaining why he’d been so determined to return lost gear: “As a police officer myself, I knew how detrimental it was to lose anything. I understood the paperwork nightmare, the potential career consequences. When I saw that cap on the ground, I knew I had to return it.”

The video showed exactly that. Todd picking up a Capitol Police baseball cap, walking to a barricade, handing it to a different officer.

This wasn’t in any of the news coverage. Not in the DOJ filings. Not in the government’s narrative. Here was a man who, seeing police equipment on the ground, took it upon himself to return it to officers—and for this he was later accused of being at the “front of the mob.”

The aggressive yelling: Remember those photographs of Todd apparently screaming at police, face contorted, appearing hostile and threatening?

The attorney played video with audio. The quality wasn’t perfect, but you could hear Todd’s voice. He was pointing in the distance, toward another section of the perimeter, and yelling: “Hold the line!”

He wasn’t threatening the police. He wasn’t yelling at them in anger. He was trying to alert them that there might be a breach happening elsewhere, that they needed to maintain their position. “Hold the line”—it’s literally what police say to each other in crowd control situations.

The still photographs, taken from that video without audio, made it look like rage. The actual footage showed someone trying to help.

Again: not in the news coverage. Not in the government’s narrative. Context removed, intent mischaracterized.

The barricade breach: This was the most significant discrepancy of all.

The prosecution’s photographs showed Todd’s foot on a fallen bike-rack barricade. They showed what appeared to be him pushing against it. They described him as “stomping” on it, “pushing it toward police,” being “among the first to breach” the line.

The defense attorney played the full video.

Here’s what actually happened:

Todd was standing at a barricade, yes. But he wasn’t at the front because he’d rushed there aggressively. He was there because that’s where he’d ended up after returning the police cap. He was essentially standing still, observing.

Behind him, a massive crowd was growing. Thousands of people, pressing forward, the kind of crowd physics anyone who’s been in a dense gathering understands. He had nowhere to go. The pressure from behind was immense.

The barricade started to buckle. Not because Todd was pushing it. Not because any individual was forcing it over. But because thousands of pounds of pressure from the crowd behind was creating an unstoppable force. For most people in that crowd, it was unintentional—they were simply being pushed forward by those behind them, who were being pushed by those behind them.

The video showed Todd touch the barricade for less than one second—a hand reaching out to steady himself, to keep from falling as the crowd surged and the barrier gave way.

Then the barricade fell toward the police line.

Todd, caught in the surge, had no choice but to step onto it and walk across it. He didn’t stomp. He didn’t throw it down. He was pushed forward by the crowd, forced to step on the fallen barrier simply to avoid being trampled.

The still photographs the FBI had shown him during his arrest—the ones that looked like deliberate, violent action—were captured from this moment of crowd surge, with all context removed.

Once across the fallen barricade, Todd immediately moved to the side. He found a raised flat surface and sat down, removing himself from the flow of the crowd.

From there, he observed.

The police tactics: Sitting on that raised surface, Todd watched what the police were doing with crowd control. And what he saw troubled him, as a former officer who’d been trained in these exact situations.

Police were firing tear gas canisters—but not at the crowd directly. They were shooting over people’s heads, arcing the canisters so they’d land behind the crowd.

If you understand crowd control, you know this is the opposite of correct procedure. Tear gas is meant to create a barrier between police and a crowd, to push people back. If you fire it behind a crowd, you force people forward—toward the police lines, toward the Capitol. You trap them between the gas and the building.

Todd testified to this. In his view, based on his training and experience, the police tactics were instigating forward movement, not preventing it. The videos shown in court—videos that had been broadcast thousands of times on news networks and shown during congressional hearings—captured protesters yelling at police, asking why they were shooting into peaceful crowds.

But in all that media coverage, in all those congressional hearings, the audio of what protesters were actually saying had been edited out. What looked like an angry mob yelling threats was, in many cases, people shouting in confusion and fear: “Why are you shooting at us? We’re peaceful!”

I’m not making a broad claim here about all police conduct that day or all crowd behavior. I’m telling you what the videos shown in that courtroom revealed about Todd’s specific location and the specific tactics being used there.

The tear gas and entry: The tear gas affected Todd. His eyes were burning. He needed to rinse them.

He made his way to the Capitol building. He entered through a door near a broken window—but at that specific entrance, there was no active chaos, no violence occurring. The security camera footage shown in court tracked him walking down an empty hallway, clearly looking for something.

He testified that he was looking for a bathroom—specifically, to rinse his eyes. Was he also looking for an actual restroom? Maybe. But the tear gas exposure was real, documented in videos showing the gas deployment, and he was seen wiping his eyes.

He turned around in the hallway, became disoriented, and somehow ended up in the Rotunda instead of exiting through the same door. There were perhaps a hundred people in the Rotunda—not rioting, not attacking anyone, not destroying property. They were taking selfies, looking around like tourists visiting a public building.

Which, in their minds, it was. Many people that day genuinely believed they’d been invited in. Multiple videos exist of Capitol Police officers opening doors, standing aside, appearing to wave people through. Whether those officers were simply overwhelmed and trying to manage crowd flow, or whether something else was happening, I don’t know. But the people entering in many cases weren’t breaking down doors—they were walking through open ones, past officers who weren’t stopping them.

Todd took a quick selfie—evidence of his presence, yes, but also evidence of his mindset. Someone committing a crime, someone attacking a building, doesn’t usually stop to take a souvenir photo with a casual smile to show his family.

He pushed through the incoming crowd and exited. Total time inside: six minutes.

Six minutes. That was his entire presence inside the Capitol. No violence. No property destruction. No confrontation with police. Six minutes of walking through hallways, briefly entering the Rotunda, taking a photo, and leaving.

Ray Epps: There was one other piece of testimony that never made it into news coverage but was presented in court.

Todd was near Ray Epps during the approach to the Capitol. Epps is the individual who appeared in numerous videos explicitly encouraging people to enter the Capitol—”We need to go into the Capitol! Into the Capitol!”—and who became the subject of intense speculation about whether he was a federal asset or informant due to his odd treatment by investigators.

Todd heard Epps encouraging people to enter. Based on his law enforcement experience and the strangeness of someone so explicitly advocating illegal entry while seemingly facing no consequences, Todd believed Epps was likely working for the government in some capacity.

I’m not asking you to believe that. I’m telling you what Todd testified to, what he observed, and what contributed to his statement to FBI agents that the riot seemed like a “set up.”

Todd’s testimony: When Todd took the stand in his own defense, his testimony was sincere and, to me, utterly credible.

He explained that he never would have been anywhere near those events if he’d known they would unfold as they did. He thought he was going to hear speeches. When he helped police by returning their equipment, he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing. When he alerted them to potential breaches elsewhere, he was trying to help them maintain order.

Did he exercise poor judgment? Absolutely. Should he have left the moment things started to look chaotic? Without question. Was his presence, even as a peaceful observer, a liability in a situation that spiraled out of control? Yes.

But did he assault police? No. Did he deliberately breach barricades? No. Did he enter the Capitol with intent to disrupt the constitutional process? No.

He apologized—both on the stand and afterward in the hallway—to the Capitol Police officer whose cap he’d recovered. He expressed genuine regret for the position his poor judgment had put his family in, for the stress and fear they’d endured.

The judge asked the prosecution a pointed question: Had they offered Todd the opportunity to plead guilty to misdemeanors?

No, they hadn’t.

The judge seemed troubled by this. Here was a defendant with no criminal record, a former police officer, someone who hadn’t engaged in violence or property destruction—and the government had insisted on going to trial on felony charges rather than offering a reasonable plea.

Part IV: The Verdict and What It Meant

Judge Mehta announced his verdict after both sides had rested.

Not guilty on both felony charges. The government had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Todd had specifically intended to obstruct police officers in their duties.

Guilty on all four misdemeanors: entering restricted grounds, disorderly conduct in restricted areas, disorderly conduct in the Capitol, and parading or demonstrating in the Capitol.

Todd’s attorney noted that three of those convictions might be appealable based on a legal question about whether defendants needed to know that a Secret Service protectee—Vice President Mike Pence—was present in the building. Todd had testified he didn’t know Pence was there. But regardless, those were the convictions.

In the courtroom, I felt both relief and frustration. Relief that the felonies—the serious charges that could have meant years in federal prison—had been dismissed. Frustration that the full truth of what had happened still somehow hadn’t broken through completely.

But it had broken through enough. The judge had seen the videos. He’d heard the testimony. He’d concluded that Todd hadn’t obstructed police.

Sentencing came months later, in the fall of 2024. Prosecutors asked for eleven months in prison, arguing that deterrence was essential given ongoing election controversies and the potential for future political violence. They painted Todd as someone who’d refused accountability, who’d blamed police, whose conduct was especially troubling given his background.

The judge sentenced him to two years of probation with 30 days of home confinement and electronic monitoring, plus fines and restitution. It was lenient compared to what prosecutors sought, but still a criminal conviction, still punishment, still a permanent mark on his record.

Todd expressed remorse in his sentencing statement. “My family has been through hell,” he said. “I would never do anything like this again.”

And then, in January 2025, President Trump issued blanket pardons for January 6th defendants. Todd was included. His conviction was erased, his punishment nullified.

The media coverage of the pardons was predictably critical. Headlines blasted the decision. Officers who’d been at the Capitol that day gave emotional interviews about accountability being denied. Todd was listed among the “rioters” who’d been pardoned, still characterized as someone who’d been “among the first to breach” police lines.

The narrative hadn’t changed. Despite the acquittals. Despite the evidence presented at trial. Despite the videos showing what had actually happened.

He was still, in the public record, a Capitol rioter.

Part V: What This Means

Todd’s outcome was an outlier, and I want to be clear about why.

He had resources. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his legal defense—money that most January 6th defendants simply didn’t have. He could afford a prominent attorney who had the time and resources to dig through hundreds of hours of video footage, to build a comprehensive defense, to challenge the government’s narrative point by point.

Most defendants couldn’t do that. Most took plea deals. Many pleaded guilty to charges they may not have fully understood or may not have actually committed, because the alternative was risking decades in federal prison.

I’ve watched around 20 hours of January 6th footage now—far more than most people who have strong opinions about that day. And I’m convinced that 99% of the people who were charged did nothing that should have resulted in felony convictions. Were people there who committed violence? Yes. Were there individuals who assaulted officers, who broke windows, who went looking for lawmakers with zip ties and violent intent? Absolutely, and those people should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent. (My only caveat is: it is not impossible they were plants.)

But the mass prosecution of hundreds of people—many of whom were doing exactly what Todd was doing, walking through doors that police had opened, taking selfies, being pushed forward by crowds—was something else entirely. It was a political response to a political crisis, and it swept up far more people than justice required.

(It also must be contrasted to the several thousands of violent, destructive, and looting rioters during the George Floyd protestors who got off scott-free, which actually killed people and caused billions in damage.)

Here’s what troubles me most: the complete disconnect between what video evidence showed and what was reported. Not just in Todd’s case, but systematically.

The photographs that made Todd look violent were taken from videos that showed something entirely different. Context was stripped away. Audio was omitted. Exculpatory evidence—him returning police equipment, him being pushed by the crowd, him alerting officers to breaches—never made it into news coverage.

And I don’t think that was accidental.

Let me be clear about what I’m claiming and what I’m not claiming.

I’m not claiming that January 6th wasn’t serious. It was. The peaceful transfer of power is foundational to democratic governance, and any disruption of that process is deeply troubling. That being said, that reason many were present is because of the widespread irregularities in the election and a distrust of the outcome. They weren’t attempting to influence the overturning of an election, but rather a more critical examination. Which is not an insurrection by means: it’s actually the opposite.

I’m not claiming that everyone there was peaceful. Some weren’t. There was violence. There may have been people with genuinely dangerous intent. That’s part-and-parcel for most protests.

I’m not claiming that Todd made all good decisions. He didn’t. He should have left the moment things started looking chaotic. His judgment failed him at crucial moments.

What I am claiming is this.

The narrative that was constructed about January 6th—and about individual participants like Todd—was often disconnected from what actually happened. Evidence was selectively presented. Context was removed. Photographs were used in ways that fundamentally misrepresented the events they depicted. People were treated unfairly, deprived of due process, and railroaded to prison. They are literal political prisoners.

And this wasn’t just sloppy law enforcement, prosecution, and journalism. It was systematic. Authoritarian. Tyrannical.

I think back to my own reaction when I first heard about Todd’s arrest. I was ready to believe he might have done something terrible, because that’s what all the coverage suggested. I trusted the institutions—the FBI, the DOJ, the media—to present accurate information.

But they didn’t. Or at least, they didn’t tell the whole truth.

The FBI showed Todd photographs that made him look violent while having video evidence that showed something else. Prosecutors characterized his conduct in ways that the full video footage contradicted. Media outlets reported claims from DOJ filings without apparently reviewing the underlying evidence.

And this happened across hundreds of cases.

Part VI: The Bigger Picture

There’s a broader context here that matters.

At the time of Todd’s arrest and trial, certain perspectives about January 6th were being actively suppressed on social media platforms. I was blocked on Facebook for sharing views that questioned the prevailing narrative. Posts that suggested the crowd had been provoked, or that police tactics might have contributed to the chaos, were removed. Accounts were suspended. There was a clear effort to maintain a single, unified story about what had happened.

This began to change when Elon Musk purchased Twitter (now X) and loosened content moderation policies. Suddenly, videos that had been hard to find were being shared widely. Independent journalists and commentators who’d been marginalized could reach audiences. Alternative accounts of January 6th could be discussed without immediate platform censorship.

The “marketplace of ideas” was restored.

What happened on January 6th wasn’t a question of misinformation versus facts. It was a question of which facts were allowed to be discussed, which context was considered acceptable, which videos could be shared.

The government-media complex—and I use that term deliberately—had constructed a narrative. And for a time, that narrative was essentially unchallengeable in mainstream spaces. If you questioned it, you were labeled an insurrection apologist, a conspiracy theorist, someone undermining democracy itself.

But I sat in that courtroom. I watched the videos. I saw the disconnect between what had been reported and what the evidence actually showed.

And I’m certain I’m not the only one. How many other cases involved similar discrepancies? How many other defendants had evidence that contradicted the government’s narrative but lacked the resources to fight? How many took plea deals to avoid the risk of decades in prison, even though the charges were overblown or based on selectively presented evidence?

Let’s talk about the blanket pardons, because they’re relevant here.

When President Trump pardoned January 6th defendants in January 2025, the response was predictably partisan. Supporters celebrated it as justice finally being served, as recognition that the prosecutions had been politically motivated. Critics condemned it as an assault on accountability, as sending a message that political violence would be tolerated if it came from the right.

My view is more complicated.

I believe that when there’s systematic corruption in mass prosecutions—when evidence is selectively presented, when context is deliberately stripped away, when the machinery of justice is bent toward political ends—it taints everything. Even the cases where there was genuine guilt.

If some defendants were violent and deserved serious punishment, but the process that convicted them was fundamentally compromised, then the convictions themselves become suspect. Not because we know those specific individuals were innocent, but because we can’t trust that the process was fair.

That’s a tragedy. Because the people who were actually violent, who actually intended harm, should be held accountable. But when you corrupt the process broadly enough, you make it impossible to distinguish the guilty from the merely present, the violent from the peaceful, the intentional from the accidental.

The blanket pardons are, in a sense, an admission that the entire process was too tainted to stand. I don’t think that’s the right outcome—I think individual review would have been better, separating those who truly committed violence from those who were swept up in overreach. However, I have come to believe that that was impractical for one compelling reason: it would have delayed the relief of those wrongfully prosecuted and sentenced.

When hundreds of prosecutions are based on the same investigative approach, the same selective evidence presentation, the same contextual omissions—when you can show that happening case after case after case—then the only way to correct for it is wholesale nullification.

That’s not justice either. But neither was what came before.

Part VII: Rethinking January 6th

I’m asking you to hold space for the possibility that the story about January 6 is more complex than you’ve been told, and you’ve been deliberately misinformed.

Consider what we know for certain:

• Capitol Police, in multiple instances, opened doors and appeared to wave people through. This is on video.
• Tear gas was deployed in ways that pushed crowds forward rather than back. This is documented.
• Undercover officers and federal informants were present in the crowd and were provoking entry into the Capitol. The government has acknowledged this, though the full extent remains unclear.
• Many people who entered the Capitol did so through open doors, past officers who weren’t stopping them (indeed waving them in), and behaved like tourists rather than insurrectionists.
• Video evidence in many cases contradicted the government’s characterization of defendants’ conduct, but this evidence was often not presented in news coverage or was only revealed during trial.
• The House investigation into January 6th was criticized even by some Democratic officials for its lack of Republican participation and for potentially destroying or failing to preserve certain evidence.
• No police officers died as a direct result of violence on January 6th. Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes (strokes) the following day, as determined by the medical examiner. Four officers died by suicide in the months following but there is no way to attribute their causes. Ashli Babbitt, a veteran, was shot and killed by Capitol Police.

These facts don’t negate the seriousness of January 6th. But they complicate the simple narrative of a violent insurrection versus purely heroic defenders.

What if January 6th was a protest that was deliberately mismanaged—either through incompetence or intent—in ways that created chaos where there might have been control? What if the massive crowd, many of whom had no violent intent, was subjected to tactics that provoked rather than defused tension? This is an established protocol of our US government’s intelligence agencies.

What if the subsequent prosecutions were less about justice and more about sending a political message, about ensuring that questioning the 2020 election results would be associated with criminality and violence?

I’m not asking you to believe this definitively. I’m asking you to consider it as possible, based on what I witnessed firsthand in Todd’s case.

Part VIII: The Man I Know

Let me return to Todd himself, because amid all this analysis and political context, there were human beings whose lives were upended.

Todd Henderson is not a perfect person. None of us are. He made poor decisions on January 6th. He should have left earlier. He should have recognized that even his peaceful presence could be seen as supporting something dangerous.

But he’s also someone who spent two decades serving his community as a police officer. Someone who, even at the Capitol, tried to help by returning lost equipment and alerting officers to potential breaches. Someone who, when tear gas affected his eyes, sought relief rather than confrontation.

His attorney summarized it well at sentencing: Todd showed poor judgment, but his lifetime of good deeds—his service, his character, his contributions to his community—outweighed those poor choices.

I’m not trying to make Todd a hero. I’m trying to show you that he’s a good man who fell into a bad situation which, arguably, he should have foreseen and avoided. But “should have known better” isn’t the same as “committed violent insurrection.” Recall his sole purpose was to hear Trump’s final presidential speech.

The morning of the FBI raid feels like years ago now. The terror of that day, the confusion, the fear for what would happen to Todd and his family—it’s faded somewhat, replaced by exhaustion and a kind of bitter wisdom about how institutions can fail.

When I think about what to tell my own child about January 6th, I struggled. Because the simple narrative—that it was an insurrection, that everyone there was a rioter, that the prosecutions were justified—doesn’t hold up against what I know to be true about Todd’s case, and the extensive research I have conducted over the years.

Ultimately, I decided to tell the truth. Our government and the media conspired in a shockingly evil way that suits dictators in other countries.

Part IX: What We Owe Each Other

Here’s what I’ve learned from this ordeal.

First, question everything. Not in a paranoid, conspiracy-minded way, but with genuine intellectual humility. When you see a photograph that makes someone look monstrous, ask if there’s video that provides context. When you read a headline that confirms your existing beliefs, dig deeper into the underlying evidence. When institutions tell you something is true, remember that institutions are made up of people with biases, incentives, and agendas.

Second, character matters, but it’s not dispositive. Todd is a good person. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have done something terrible. But it should make you pause before accepting without question that he did. When someone’s alleged conduct seems wildly out of character, that’s a reason to look more carefully at the evidence, not to assume the worst.

Third, complexity is uncomfortable but necessary. January 6th was serious and also overblown. Some police acted heroically and also sometimes used poor tactics—or worse. Instigating a stampede and shooting an unarmed woman, included. Protesters were mostly peaceful and some were violent. All of these things can be true simultaneously.

Fourth, resources determine justice in ways that should horrify us. Todd was acquitted of felonies because he could afford a defense that accessed and presented evidence the government had ignored or mischaracterized. Most defendants couldn’t. That’s not justice—that’s a system where wealth determines innocence or guilt more than facts do.

Fifth, free speech matters desperately. The suppression of alternative narratives about January 6th, the censorship of videos and perspectives that complicated the official story, the labeling of questions as conspiracy theories—all of this prevented the public from accessing information we needed to evaluate the truth.

I’m grateful for the changes in social media that allowed suppressed information to surface. Yes, it allows misinformation to spread. But misinformation was already spreading in the form of selective, context-free reporting that had no opposition. At least now there’s competition between narratives, which allows people to evaluate evidence for themselves, and gives truth a chance to prevail.

Conclusion: Living With What I Know

I can’t un-know what I learned in that courtroom. I can’t unsee the videos that contradicted the photographs. I can’t forget the disconnection between the evidence and the narrative.

And I can’t stop thinking about all the other cases I didn’t sit through. All the other defendants who might have had similar stories but lacked the resources to tell them. All the plea deals that were accepted under pressure of draconian sentences for what might have been minor or even non-existent culpability.

The Biden administration’s handling of January 6th prosecutions—the mass arrests, the aggressive charging, the selective presentation of evidence, the political framing—represents, to me, a profound corruption of justice. Stalinesque. Not because everyone charged was innocent, but because the process was bent toward a predetermined outcome rather than toward truth.

I was an inadvertent expert on January 6th now. I’ve seen more footage than most journalists who covered it. I’ve sat through a trial where the evidence was presented in full. I’ve watched the narrative machine work, seen how it constructs stories from fragments while discarding inconvenient context.

And I’m certain—as certain as I can be about anything—that January 6th was not primarily a violent insurrection. It was a protest that included violent elements, mismanaged by authorities in ways that created chaos, and then prosecuted with a political agenda that prioritized narrative over nuance.

Most people there that day did nothing violent. Most entered through open doors or were pushed by crowds they couldn’t escape. Most took selfies and left. And most were never charged.

But hundreds were. And in case after case after case, the pattern repeats: selective evidence, stripped context, photographs without video, aggressive prosecution, pressure to plead.

Todd was an outlier because he fought and won. But his victory shouldn’t have required hundreds of thousands of dollars and a nationally prominent attorney. His innocence of the serious charges should have been obvious from the start, if the investigators and prosecutors had been interested in truth rather than convictions.

When I see coverage of January 6th now—the anniversary retrospectives, the ongoing political debates, the invocation of that day as a watershed moment in American democracy—I feel a strange disconnect.

Because I know something most people don’t: that at least one person who was labeled a rioter, who was charged with violent crimes, who was held up as an example of law enforcement officers turning against their brothers in blue, was actually trying to help police and was pushed into a barricade by crowd surge and entered a building to rinse tear gas from his eyes.

If that’s true of Todd, how many others had similar stories?

How many of the “insurrectionists” were really just people who made poor decisions to attend a protest that spiraled beyond anyone’s control?

How many of the “violent mob” were actually peaceful but caught in crowd dynamics they couldn’t escape?

How many of the convictions were based on photographic evidence that video would have contradicted, if anyone had bothered to look?

I don’t have those answers. But I know we should be asking the questions.

The government-media complex that constructed and defended the January 6th narrative is losing its grip. Not because conspiracy theories have won, but because the tools of information control have weakened. Independent journalists, social media, the sheer volume of video evidence available to anyone who wants to look—these have created cracks in the wall.

The truth is leaking through those cracks.

It doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s partisan narrative. It doesn’t absolve everyone who was there or condemn everyone who was charged. It’s messy, complicated, shot through with poor decisions by people on all sides.

But it’s closer to the truth than what we’ve been told.

Todd Henderson is living his life now, free of criminal conviction, trying to rebuild what was lost. His reputation in our community remains solid among those who know him. His family is recovering from the trauma, though slowly.

And I’m left with the knowledge that everything I thought I knew about January 6th was mostly wrong in ways that fundamentally changed its meaning.

That’s uncomfortable. It should be uncomfortable.

Because if we got this wrong—if the institutions we trusted, the media we relied on, the law enforcement we respected all failed this badly—then what else are we getting wrong?

What other narratives are we accepting without sufficient scrutiny? What other photographs are being shown without video context? What other prosecutions are based on selective evidence?

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Todd’s story is over, at least legally. But the bigger story—about January 6th, about justice, about truth in an age of information control—that story is still being written.

And we all have a responsibility to write it honestly.

Even when honesty is uncomfortable. Even when it contradicts what we want to believe. Even when it challenges institutions we’ve been taught to trust.

Especially then.

Because if we don’t demand truth from the powerful, if we don’t question narratives that serve political ends, if we don’t insist that evidence be presented fully rather than selectively—then we’re not citizens of a democracy.

We’re just audiences for whoever controls the story.

Todd taught me that. Not through any grand speech or philosophical discourse, but through the simple, terrible fact of being a good man caught in a corrupted system that nearly destroyed him for choices that didn’t warrant destruction.

I hope his story makes you question something. Anything. I hope it makes you less certain about what you think you know and more curious about what you haven’t been told.

Because that’s where truth lives. Not in certainty, but in the uncomfortable spaces where the official story doesn’t quite fit the evidence.

That’s where we need to look.

That’s where Todd was, that morning when FBI agents pulled him over and arrested him at gunpoint, and swarmed his home and changed everything.

And that’s where all of us are now, whether we realize it or not—in the space between the story we’ve been told and the truth we haven’t been allowed to see.

The question is whether we have the courage to look into the abyss, accept we were wrong, and speak truth to power.