Three members of Utah’s congressional delegation invited a California man convicted in the Jan. 6 riot back to the U.S. Capitol, this time to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a letter written by former U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart asking a judge to give the man permission to travel.
In the letter, submitted to federal District Judge Royce Lamberth, Stewart cited his previous positions in Congress and the U.S. Air Force in making the request, adding, “Three other current members of the Utah congressional delegation join with me in extending this invitation.”
The former Utah congressman’s letter does not say which three Utah members of Congress extended the invitation to Russell Taylor, who currently is on probation after pleading guilty to obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced in May to six months home detention and three years probation. Stewart did not respond to questions about the invitation.
Spokespeople for three of the six members of Utah’s current federal delegation — Sen. Mitt Romney, Rep. John Curtis and Rep. Blake Moore — confirmed to The Salt Lake Tribune that they did not give the invitation. According to Moore’s office, it did not receive a ticket request from Taylor.
Rep.-elect Michael Kennedy’s incoming chief of staff, who is handling the state lawmaker’s transition to Congress, said Kennedy was not aware of the letter or any requests for inauguration tickets for Taylor.
A spokesperson for Rep. Celeste Maloy said the congresswoman “hasn’t issued any invitations to the inauguration yet,” but declined to comment when asked whether Maloy would offer a ticket if Taylor is allowed to travel.
Maloy replaced Stewart in the House of Representatives last year. Prior, she was working as Stewart’s legal counsel on Jan. 6, 2021, and when he decided not to vote to convict Trump for the ex-president’s alleged “incitement of insurrection” that day. She previously called the impeachment “political grandstanding” because Trump was going to leave office when Biden was sworn in a few days later.
Romney did not receive tickets to the inauguration because he is retiring from the Senate before the Jan. 20 ceremony. Questions sent to Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Burgess Owens went unanswered.
Stewart and Owens were the only two Utahns who voted not to certify the 2020 election results. Romney was the sole member of Utah’s federal delegation to vote to convict Trump for his actions on Jan. 6.
The former congressman vouches for Taylor’s character, saying he is “a man of integrity and faith who has served those who are less fortunate.
“He is constant in his service to members of his local church congregation and others not of his faith in his community,” Stewart wrote. “Russ is a successful entrepreneur and business owner with his wife. He is [a] caring father and reveres his family, his faith, and his love of our Country as his highest priority in life.”
Stewart said it was an honor to extend the invitation, along with the three members of the delegation, and asked Lamberth to grant Taylor permission to attend with his family.
Taylor’s attorney, Dyke Huish, said he didn’t know who the members of Congress offering Taylor the chance to observe the inauguration were. Huish said Taylor “never had a relationship with the congressman [Stewart] until after he was sentenced,” emphasizing “not before.”
The pair were connected through a “close family friend,” Huish added, although he wouldn’t disclose who.
According to the attorney, Taylor “spends a lot of time” in Utah and owns property in the southern part of the state. His company Smugglers Runs, which offers themed off-road Jeep expeditions — like one with the objective to “hunt down Russian engineers responsible for developing a highly secretive weapons technology” — is registered in Utah.
Taylor “still believes there were irregularities in the [2020] election,” Huish said, but that his client has conceded he “went too far.”
“He’s being recognized as really exemplary in the way he both took responsibility, never sacrificed his integrity on the subject, and was ultimately, by the judge, given one of the lowest sentences in the entire Jan. 6 prosecutions,” Huish said of the invitation.
Federal prosecutors originally filed a half dozen charges against Taylor for his part in the riot. They alleged he was a leader of the American Phoenix Project, part of the “Three Percenters” militia, and coordinated plans for Jan. 6 plans with five other co-defendants.
Taylor flew to Washington a few days before the election was to be certified while his co-conspirators drove a rented Chevy Suburban filled with their supplies, according to court filings. On the morning of Jan. 6, records allege, Taylor posted in a Telegram group that “I personally want to be on the front steps and be one of the first ones to breach the door!”
According to the charging documents, Taylor and the others pushed through police barricades but Taylor told members of the group in private messages that he did not go inside the Capitol because he had weapons.
Taylor had a hatchet, a bullet-proof vest, a helmet, bear spray, a stun baton and tactical gloves when he went to the Capitol, prosecutors said in a sentencing document.
Taylor pleaded guilty and testified against one of his co-conspirators, a former police chief. Prosecutors had asked Lamberth to sentence Taylor to four years and four months in prison, but Lamberth gave him probation.
Lamberth has not ruled on Taylor’s request for permission to travel to the inauguration.
Trump has frequently referred to those convicted in the Capitol riot as “hostages,” and said in a recent interview on “Meet The Press” that he would “most likely” pardon them and that they “have suffered long and hard.”
In the nearly four years since the riot, 1,572 people have been charged with crimes related to the event.
Separately, Taylor was among a host of defendants — including Trump — named in a civil case filed by Capitol Police officers injured on Jan. 6. He made an undisclosed payment to the plaintiffs to settle his role in the case, his attorney said in a court filing before his sentencing.
