Former Pennsylvania police officer Joe Fischer has a Supreme Court victory named after him, but that hasn’t erased the pain caused by the Biden Justice Department in connection with his presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he told The Federalist in his first media interview.
If President-Elect Donald Trump keeps his word on his first day in office to pardon people involved in the J6 chaos in Washington, D.C., it will end four years of heartache for those in prison or still awaiting trial or sentencing.
Fischer, now 58, was a municipal police officer in Pennsylvania when he took a day off work and went to see Trump speak. Fischer told The Federalist he never intended to go inside the Capitol building, but he was near the door in a tight crowd and was swept inside.
“The crowd lunged forward, pushing me, and we all went forward. I fell on the ground just inside the threshold of the Capitol, and found a pair of handcuffs on the ground,” Fischer said. “I stood up and immediately gave them to a police officer who was about five or six feet in front of me, and I said, ‘Hey, you might need these, buddy.’”
Fischer said he was never more than 15 feet from the door, and was inside four or five minutes, during which he said he was pushed against a police crowd control shield and shot with pepper spray by police before falling to the ground.
“I was probably on the ground for about a minute or so, totally discombobulated, and then at some point, some police officers say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to go.’ And I’m like, ‘Hey, that’d be great if I could see. It’s hard to get out when you can’t see.’ He actually laughed at my comment.”
Fischer said police pushed him through the crowd and he was able to get outside. Once he connected with a traveling partner, they left the Capitol, got some food, and went home.
About a month later he was arrested in his home.
Fischer had returned home around 3:30 a.m. from a 10-hour shift patrolling as a North Cornwall Township police officer. It was a snowy day in February 2021. He went upstairs to bed by 5 a.m., and around 8 a.m. he heard banging on his door.
“When I looked out the window, I could see a line of cars going up the side of my rural road,” It was a surreal moment for Fischer, who had been trained by the FBI as a hostage negotiator.
“I was baffled at first. And then I saw one of the guys with a long gun, wearing a tactical vest, and it said FBI. I hear someone outside say, ‘There’s movement in the upstairs window,’” he said. Fischer got dressed and went downstairs. When he opened the door, he noticed a sniper back by a vehicle, had a gun pointed in Fischer’s direction.
“On the porch, they put me in leg shackles, and they handcuffed me in the front with a leather belt with a ring on it,” Fischer said. His wife spent the next four hours seated on the couch, guarded by two men with guns, while they searched the house and removed his guns.
Fischer was taken to an FBI office in Harrisburg. He was exhausted.
“They gave me a huge roast beef sandwich, but I wasn’t hungry, so I used it as a pillow,” a decision he would later regret. He spent the next five days in a county prison where he says the food was awful.
He was charged with obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder; knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds; and obstruction of justice/Congress.
Because of the charges, within six weeks, he lost the police job he held for 18 years.
“I had to sell off almost everything I have,” Fischer said. “I was able to keep the house and I was able to keep the car. But I lost pretty much everything else of mine. We’ve exhausted all savings and everything. We’ve had some friends and family help out occasionally. I lost my pension.”
The month-to-month financial struggle has not been helped by a diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer, surgery, and soon, more radiation. All while the cloud of federal prison and fines hangs over his head.
Fischer said he was looking at 20 years for the obstruction charge alone, but he challenged it in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Did his brief presence inside the building obstruct Congress from conducting business that day? The Supreme Court ruled a person had to be doing something more than being present.
Many people were charged with obstruction in relation to J6. The decision in Fischer v. United States erased this heavy charge in their cases.
But he still faces the other charges in court in 2025.
‘FBI was weaponized’
Fischer has drawn closer to God through the experience.
“Jesus has always been there. But when I was in prison, I was at the lowest point in my life, and at that point there, I prayed to God, and I realized a couple things,” he said. “That this was so much bigger than me. I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t know what was going on outside of [my cell]. I just prayed, and I said, ‘God. I can’t handle this, and I have to give this to you. And I give it to you to do with this whatever you want. Whatever that may be, and may it glorify you. Use me however you want. And I think the testimony to that is, He did use me, I believe, to take it to the Supreme Court.”
“I absolutely believe the FBI was weaponized by the Democratic Party, and or the powers that be that control this government,” Fischer said. He believes the FBI should be entirely audited for personnel.
As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland previously reported, the congressional Jan. 6 Committee tried to control the narrative of that day using shady tactics like asking “wildly inappropriate questions,” during depositions, then hiding the transcripts of the conversations.
A pardon won’t give Joe Fischer his health, career, or pension back. A pardon won’t give lost time and precious family moments back to the hundreds of J6 victims who have been persecuted by the Biden administration.
But a merciful pardon of those connected to J6 will remove the four-year cloud that has hung over their heads, let them go on to pursue their happiness, and signal to the nation that we are turning away from injustice.
