AMERICAN FORK, Utah — The license plate on Brad Bokoski’s motorcycle says “J6ER.”
That doesn’t mean Bokoski’s proud of everything associated with his walk inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Bokoski was subsequently convicted of a misdemeanor stemming from that day.
When President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month, Bokoski would like a pardon. He’d like one for most of the other Jan. 6 defendants, too.
“A pardon for that offense would eliminate my sentence,” Bokoski said, “which is a three-year probation with various conditions around it.”
Trump has said he will pardon Jan. 6 defendants, or some of them. He has given ambiguous, contradictory descriptions of which defendants he will give reprieves.
Bokoski is one of 15 Utah residents convicted of offenses related to Jan. 6. Charges are pending for three others. One Utah defendant died awaiting trial.
Nationwide, about 1,500 people have been charged. With 19 Utah defendants, according to a database maintained by NPR, Utah has more than in Connecticut, Iowa or Oklahoma – three states with similar populations and much closer to Washington.
“But what would be unique is we've never seen a president pardon such a large group of people who are explicit political supporters,” said Stewart Ulrich, a Utah native who is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Georgia and has written about presidential pardons.
The Jan. 6 defendants “were fighting specifically for” Trump, Ulrich said.
Would pardoning those defendants make political violence more likely in the future?
“So theoretically, yeah,” Ulrich said. “I think some people could feel emboldened, especially if they are political supporters of a president or a future President.”
Bokoski, who is now in his early 60s, was not one of the violent offenders that day.
In an interview with FOX 13 News, he described how he began following Trump the day he rode down those golden escalators in 2015 to announce his first presidential campaign. After the 2020 campaign, Bokoski saw Trump post on social media about the Stop The Steal rally on the day Congress was supposed to certify that election, Jan. 6, 2021.
Bokoski called his son in Chicago and asked if he wanted to go.
“I was carrying a flag of Utah,” Bokoski recalled of his trip to Washington, “representing Utah that, ‘Hey, Utah is here, President. We're with you.’”
“Got to capitol,” Bokoski said. “We were taking pictures.”
“When we were standing there on the plaza, there were people who were… holding walkie talkies, and they were saying that the Capitol is open, and police were letting everyone in.”
“We saw what I call agent provocateurs,” Bokoski continued, “waving people into doorways.”
“We are in the hallway for four minutes, and we left. Seventeen months later, we were arrested.”
Both Bokoski and his son, Matthew Bokoski, eventually pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor offense of parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol.
“Agencies of the executive branch of government,” the elder Bokoski told FOX 13, “and the membership and leadership of the legislative branch of our government, entrapped every single Trump supporter – without a doubt.”
Claims of agent provocateurs have been debunked by news outlets. Courts have rejected entrapment defenses for Jan. 6 suspects.
But Bokoski continues to voice claims that left-wing or government plants were there agitating the crowd and even among the people charged with crimes from that day. Those are the only defendants he doesn’t want pardoned.
The other 1,500 or so defendants should be pardoned, Bokoski says.
What would he say to the police officers assaulted and injured that day?
“That's what happens when the crowd is entrapped, induced and provoked,” Bokoski answered.
He also rejects any idea pardons would encourage more political violence.
“Violence isn't going to come from the Trump supporter,” he said. “As we've seen in the past, it's from the Democrat supporters, the [Black Lives Matters] activists, burning down cities, attacking police officers throughout the country.”
FOX 13 met Bokoski in American Fork in a meeting room at the Roman Catholic parish where he worships. At sentencing, supporters included his priest, who wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency. It may have helped Bokoski avoid jail. Bokoski’s son also received probation.
Does Bokoski have any regrets?
“Yes, for the hell that I’ve been through,” Bokoski said.
“Not so when I know the truth. I know what I saw. I know what happened that day.”