WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Treasury Department are forcing Jan. 6 political prisoner Zachary Rehl, who was convicted of “seditious conspiracy,” to pay back every dollar of military benefits he received after the Capitol riot.
Zach’s wife Amanda thought she had endured the worst of the government’s abuse and humiliation of her husband and family.
But Zach, a Marine Corps veteran, was stripped of his military benefits after he and his co-defendants were found guilty of “seditious conspiracy” on May 4 by an overwhelmingly left-wing, pro-Biden, Washington, D.C. jury.
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On Jan. 6, 2021, after Rehl was hit with rubber bullets, tear gas and flash grenades that police indiscriminately fired into the crowd, he walked through the Capitol building for approximately 12 minutes and took a few selfies.
Zachary Rehl outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A few weeks later, on March 17, 2021, Rehl was apprehended by the FBI in a predawn raid, when his wife was six months pregnant with her first child.
He and his co-defendants Ethan Nordean, Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola were practically starved for the 17 months they were detained in a 6-by-8-foot, windowless, freezing-cold jail cell in solitary confinement.
Zach’s brief stroll through “The People’s House” resulted in U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly handing him a stunning 15-year prison sentence for his role in the Capitol riot. Government prosecutors had sought a 30-year sentence.
Judge Kelly also added so-called “terror enhancements” to Rehl’s sentence, prompting Rehl to compare his trial and sentencing to something that would happen in communist China.
The government then appealed the sentences Rehl and the other Proud Boy J6 prisoners had received, asking the judge for still more prison time.
Nevertheless, Joe Biden’s Justice Department is not done making an example out of the Proud Boys leaders. Days after Zach was sentenced, his wife Amanda received a notice from the V.A. warning that he must immediately repay approximately $70,000 of military benefits he had received since Jan. 6, 2021.
The Rehls had already, understandably, spent their life savings and tens of thousands of dollars in donations provided by the American public on Zach’s criminal case, and simply do not have $70,000 to pay back.
Concerned that the government may retaliate against Zach with even more cruel and unusual treatment, or hefty fines they can’t afford for speaking out, Amanda initially avoided divulging to media the government’s attempt to further ruin their lives.
She retained another attorney to fight back.
But then she received a letter from the U.S. Treasury Department and decided enough was enough. The notice from Treasury demanded that Zach repay an additional $20,000 to the V.A. following the “seditious conspiracy” conviction.
Thus, according to the U.S. Treasury, Zach now owes $100,0000 to the V.A for his “sedition.”
“They want all of the benefits he received from Jan. 6, 2021 until they cut him off in September of 2022, when they denied me for hardship when I was unable to pay it back,” Amanda Rehl told WND in an exclusive interview. “They’ve since sent it to another collection agency, the U.S. Treasury, and they’ve added their own amount on. We have no idea why.”
The amount the Treasury Department is demanding exceeds the amount in benefits Zach received following the Capitol riot.
“They are asking for about $90,000, which is about $20,000 more than we were informed the V.A. wanted us to give back,” Amanda told WND. “They’ve added on an amount of money that doesn’t even add up. They never gave us that much. Even the amount they initially asked for was too high. They never gave us that amount of money and the fact that they are asking for it is crazy.
“This is just another big ‘F you.’ They are basically just trying to do whatever they can to screw him,” said Amanda Rehl. “Zach doesn’t have another $100,000 to throw away to the federal government for crimes he did not commit.”
Yet the government is demanding payment be made – in full, and immediately.
“They want it all back in one lump sum. They keep sending me letters saying, ‘Can you write a check’ for this,” Amanda continued. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I have that to just give immediately give it you.”
“Instead of cutting off his benefits from the time of his conviction on May 4, they’re cutting them off from the time the crime was committed, which is unheard of. I have no idea what they are going to do next. They said they would garnish wages and taxes, but obviously they wouldn’t be able to do that for me.”
When Amanda initially received notice demanding the payments, her attorney applied for hardship, demonstrating neither she nor Zach has the funds.
Amanda and Zachary Rehl
“I showed them all of our assets,” she explained to WND. “I showed them the money I don’t have, the job I don’t have, and they still denied it.”
Zach and Amanda are grateful to still have their sanity, a roof over their head for their family, and a healthy three-year-old daughter after the trauma they have been subjected to by the federal government over the past three-and-a-half years.
But finding a job has been impossible. Employers who catch wind that she is married to a “domestic terrorist” who is guilty of “sedition” toss her resume aside.
“It’s been a struggle to get a job,” Amanda stressed. “I can’t even get an interview. I don’t know if they’re not seeing experience that they want, or if they’re Googling my name and seeing my husband. I have been pinching pennies. I don’t do anything or go anywhere when it’s impossible to find a job with a daycare-aged child. I can’t afford to put her in daycare, it costs about $30,000 a year.
“We had an entire future planned out that we were working toward. We were putting our house up for sale. We were having a baby. We were buying a bigger house. We had so much planned, and with his arrest and everything that’s happened, I had to give up that future. I’ve become a single mom. My little girl just turned three. She has only been held by her dad three times in her entire life.
“It’s so crazy to think that this has happened to us when we’ve lived our lives to never be put in this situation. My husband’s not a criminal. He’s never gotten in trouble with the law to any capacity … to [now] be incarcerated for 15 years! He’s a good person.”
Regarding prison life, Amanda told WND: “They really don’t keep edible food in there, so you must purchase commissary. They also have to have basics, deodorant, toothpaste, clothes.”
Maintaining commissary for inmates in an understaffed prison costs at least $5,000 a year.
As the government demands Zach pay back every red cent of the military benefits he earned, Congress has dramatically cut funding for the Bureau of Prisons, causing the cost of living to increase for inmates.
In fiscal year 2024, Congress sharply cut infrastructure funding for the federal prison system. An Office of Inspector General audit found that the BOP’s budget requests have been significantly below its own estimates of resource needs. For instance, in FY 2022, the Bureau of Prisons requested about $200 million for infrastructure needs, but Congress appropriated only $59 million. These funding limitations impact the BOP’s ability to address deteriorating infrastructure and adequately staff dangerous correctional facilities.
Democrats’ spending cuts to the Bureau of Prisons has made prison life even more miserable for J6ers, Zach Rehl explained in an email to WND from FCI Petersburg.
“The Democrats have been since 2020 reducing the funding for the BOP. Basically, the moment they started planning for the scam-demic, they started planning for J6 and the outcome of it,” he wrote. “They are reducing funding in the BOP while simultaneously increasing arrests, so they are doing it to make us more miserable in here.
“The right always wants to reduce funding for things, but now they [the left] are doing it, right under our noses, to antagonize all the J6 hostages. Unreal! While blue cities release criminals without bail to just go prey on people repeatedly. It’s a sick joke. They are taunting us.”
“Is there any lawyers trying to actually get us out of prison? Because the end of the tunnel looks black, and I don’t see any light! Help me!”
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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
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- ‘8 Hours of Torture’: Jan. 6 Prisoner Repeatedly Maced By ‘Bully Guard’
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