WASHINGTON — After storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with an angry mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump, James Rahm Jr. took to Facebook to brag about what he’d done.
“Walked right through Pelosi’s office,” he wrote. “I should have s— on her chair.”
But as U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan sentenced the Philadelphia construction company owner Wednesday to a year in prison for his role in the insurrection, he recoiled at Rahm’s crass remark and balked at suggestions from defense lawyers that their client’s words were just idle talk.
“Whether you were exaggerating or boasting, I don’t know,” Hogan said. “But I hope we have learned in this country that words do matter — whether they’re from the president or someone else.”
The punishment — which also included three years of probation and an order he pay restitution for the damage caused by the Capitol attack — makes Rahm the 19th Pennsylvanian to face prison time for his role in an attack that caused millions of dollars in damage, injured scores of officers, and threatened the peaceful transition of power.
For his part, Rahm, 63, told the judge he’d never actually entered Pelosi’s office and realized as soon as he entered the Capitol building that he’d become a part of something horrible.
“When I put my foot over that threshold, my stomach dropped to the floor,” he said. “I knew only a terrorist should be in there.”
But as prosecutors noted, Rahm’s string of social media bravado while the mob was ransacking the Capitol building suggested that at least in the moment, he felt anything but remorseful.
“We have the building surrounded,” he posted on Facebook while among the rioters outside. “We’re ready to make a breach and take our Capitol back.”
Once inside, he shot a video of himself shouting: “We’re taking our f — house back. Time to find some brass and kick some friggin’ ass.”
And in case there was any doubt as to what role he played in the attack, Rahm took a selfie of his pepper-sprayed face moments after exiting the Capitol building again.
“Do not believe the media,” he wrote in the caption he posted. “There were no anarchists. No antifa. Just patriots trying to take our country back. I was there.”
That braggadocio hadn’t subsided when federal agents caught up to Rahm a month later. He accused them of being “anti-American” for conducting manhunt to track down those who participated in the attack.
He also, according to court filings, offered an unsolicited boast that he’d previously dodged earlier charges for smuggling marijuana from Mexico in the ‘80s by bribing a judge in Arizona with $25,000.
But the man who appeared before Hogan in court Wednesday bore little resemblance to the confident braggart suggested by his social media swagger.
His lawyer, Leigh M. Skipper, described Rahm at several points as “beaten down” by the reactions to his arrest. His mother didn’t talk to him for six months, he said. Former clients of his construction business have shunned him, leaving him with only trash collection as a means of making a living.
“He regrets his actions, deplores the violence and property destruction at the Capitol, and apologizes to members of Congress, congressional staff and law enforcement for his part in the events,” Skipper said.
Rahm, meanwhile, spent much of the hearing sitting silently next to his attorney, with his hands clasped at his chest. When it came time for him to address the judge, he stumbled over his words, insisting he’d never actually entered Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6 and attempting to explain how much he’d suffered — and changed — since.
But most of all, he said, he regretted bringing his adult son — James Rahm III — with him to Washington that day. The younger Rahm is also facing charges for his role in the insurrection.
But as Skipper pushed the judge to spare Rahm a prison sentence by noting that despite his words, his actions weren’t any worse than many other defendants that day, prosecutors pointed to Rahm’s lengthy criminal record as a distinction.
Rahm received probation at least four times after being convicted in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s in a string of crimes ranging from drug possession to assault — the latter of which involved a nun chuck attack on a victim whose home he’d forced himself into.
Again and again, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Collyer, probation had taught Rahm nothing.
“James Rahm Jr. will do what James Rahm Jr. wants to do,” he said. “And no one is going to tell him otherwise.”
