The awards ceremony honoring criminals convicted for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been postponed, organizers announced days before the event was set to take place.
Event organizers promised Thursday would be an “unforgettable evening at the J6 Awards Gala” to honor the 20 jailed MAGA loyalists who stormed the Capitol then later recorded a song from behind bars, titled “Justice for All.”
But Stand in the Gap, the group sponsoring the Thursday event at New Jersey’s Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, posted on its website the fundraiser will not take place as originally planned.
According to the New York Times, organizers still hope to host their gala after Nov. 5, the day Trump will represent the Republican Party for the third consecutive presidential election.
Though “invited,” the New York Times said, the Republican nominee wasn’t expected to attend the event. Organizers advertised his former attorney Rudy Giuliani among the “Attendee’s” expected to pay a visit.
Numerous right-wing influencers and the families of “America’s Heroes” jailed for their involvement in the violent uprising were also scheduled to attend.
Money raised at the event was said to “provide much-needed assistance to the January 6th defendants who continue to face significant challenges,” according to organizers. General admission tickets cost $1,500 each, while a single VIP ticket cost $2,500.
Fox Business — part of the Fox News family that endorsed electoral disinformation — reportedly got wind in late August that the gala was being postponed due to “scheduling conflicts of invited guest speakers.”
That reporting, which said Trump was expected to be in attendance, didn’t seem to get picked up by mainstream media outlets.
Trump has called for the freeing of those convicted of doing his bidding on the day Congress voted to certify Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. He refers to the inmates as “hostages.”
The 78-year-old presidential candidate faces a Sept. 18 sentencing hearing on 34 felony counts in a conspiracy to defraud the voting public in the 2016 presidential election. In May, a New York City jury convicted him of falsifying business records to hide an alleged 2006 affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.
Recent polling shows the 2024 race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris to be very close, with the Democratic candidate holding a slight advantage.
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