Jan. 6 Families Beg Americans Not To Forget About Their Loved Ones

WASHINGTON — As the Democrat-led committee investigating the Capitol riot holds its hearings in Washington D.C., families of those imprisoned over the January 6 incident beg Americans to remember their loved ones.

“There is not one day that goes by that my kids do not say that they miss their father,” Bonnie Nichols, mother to two boys aged five and seven, tearfully told The Daily Wire. “They don’t know when dad is going to come home. We talk about ‘when daddy does come home, we’re going to do this and daddy’s going to play with you and that he’s going to do all of these things’ to give them hope and to help them visualize what it’s going to look like in this.”

“But my children are suffering immensely,” she said. “They do not have a father figure. We’ve lost our breadwinner in our home, and we’re being forced to go through this immense amount of torture that no American citizen in this country should ever have to deal with. It is torture. [It] is unjust. It is unconstitutional.”

Nichols’ husband, 31-year-old Ryan Taylor Nichols, was arrested and charged with obstruction of an official proceeding; assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon; theft of government property; and more.

Nichols’ attorney has argued that he was swept up in the riot, the Long-View News Journal reported, but prosecutors said that Nichols thought the 2020 election results were illegitimate and sought to prevent the certification of the election through any means necessary, as shown by his illegal possession of a crowbar and pepper spray on Capitol grounds, according to the District of Colombia affidavit.

The publication reported that prosecutors argued in November that he “presents a clear, concrete, and continuing danger to the community.” His wife believes he has been denied his “due process rights,” concurrent with statements made in a fall 2021 motion by his attorney regarding bail conditions.

“He’s been denied access to worship,” said Bonnie, who described the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility where he is being held as “the D.C. gulag.”

“He hasn’t seen sunlight in months. He doesn’t have a proper, healthy diet. And due to the conditions of confinement, one of the major side effects and prolonged side effects is vision loss.”

“Worst of all,” she said, “he’s been denied access to see his children due to COVID. I have two young boys ages five and seven, and they share with me every night how they are concerned that their father is not going to come home. And my youngest is five, and he doesn’t even remember what his father looks like anymore.”

Cynthia Hughes, founder of the Patriot Freedom Project, told The Daily Wire that Timothy Hale-Cusanelli has also been held in the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility since February 3, 2021. Hughes is a family friend of Hale-Cusanelli, and refers to herself as his “adoptive aunt.” Timothy Hale-Cusanelli is a twelve-year army reserve veteran, she said, who lost his housing and his job and was thrown out of the army last year after he was arrested.

“He has been denied all religious services,” she said. “He’s been denied all grooming services. He’s been denied all access to me seeing him. I have not been able to even so much as have a video visit with him. I get to talk to him once a day. He had a trial two weeks ago. I saw him at trial. He does not look healthy, he does not look well.”

“He looked swollen to me,” she said, explaining that the lack of nutrition in the correctional facility has had a “tremendous impact” on his body. “He looked like he had put a little bit of weight on.”

Hale-Cusanelli was a contractor at a New Jersey Naval Weapons Station as well as a U.S. Army Reserves member who was found guilty on all charges relating to his illegal entry into the Capitol, according to NPR.

Hale-Cusanello’s former coworkers claimed he harbored white supremacist views, with them recalling statements such as “Hitler should have finished the job.”

Hughes said that Hale-Cusanelli developed severe ear infections while incarcerated that became so bad that his ear began bleeding. The inmate begged for help but was denied medical care for a long time, she said, adding that he developed the same infection with the same symptoms in the other ear later on.

He has slight hearing loss from these infections, she said. “There’s a lot of, ‘Can you repeat that? Can you repeat that?’ when we talk to him.”

“When we went to trial I was not allowed to embrace him, I was not allowed to hug him,” she added. “He was treated like a hardened criminal, like a murderer.”

Authorities arrested Robert Morss, who is in his late twenties, in June 2021 and charged him with “federal offenses that include assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers; obstruction