Behind the Story: Life After Prison, Trump’s Pardon, and the Road to Reform

Image

Annie Howell is a Pennsylvania resident who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Her story is told in the Pulitzer Center-supported documentary Public Defender, by grantee and filmmaker Andrea Kalin. The film follows defense attorney Heather Shaner as she represents Howell and fellow rioter Jack Griffith in court after the Capitol attack.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump pardoned about 1,500 people charged in connection with the January 6 attack, including Howell, who had served time in jail. She chose to accept the pardon, but expressed deep regret for her actions.

Pulitzer Center Editorial Intern Morgan Varnado interviewed Howell about her life after the documentary, and her concerns about the blanket pardons and the potential for future political violence.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Morgan Varnado: How has life been since making your decision concerning the pardon?

Annie Howell:  I was one of the few nonviolent people that got sentenced to prison time [for the Capitol attack]. I didn't have a criminal record.

I had my real estate license. I had a small child, my son was 4 when all this happened. I was doing really well in life. [January 6] just ruined my life.

I got pretty much pushed out of my neighborhood. Family pretty much walked away from me, and all my friends that were in the Trump organization abandoned me.

So it was just a really hard time for me.

They didn't give me a regular sentence. They gave me 60 days of intermittent confinement. So I had to leave society every 20 days. ​​ I wound up becoming homeless because I couldn't work a steady job or maintain my business.

 The judge did it because he thought he was helping me with my custody situation. But in hindsight, I wouldn't have taken that sentence if I had a choice.

On top of it, I had to do community service. And then I had to pay restitution. And then I had to do three years of intensive federal probation. I had to [go] to therapy every week. I did all those things and was set to get off probation March 5th of this year.

For me,  I considered not accepting the pardon because I didn't want everything that I did to get dismissed. I paid my debt. But, unfortunately, I'm still going through the custody stuff. My lawyer advised me to take [the pardon]. That's honestly the only reason why I took it.

 It's weird because some people glorify [January 6] and look at me as a martyr and a hero. Then other people just despise me and think I'm a domestic terrorist.

So there's no "in the middle." So I kind of had to be a little bit reclusive.

[Editor's Note: Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced Howell to 60 days of intermittent jail, according to WNEP in Pennsylvania.]

MV: At the end of the documentary, you mentioned that you were trying to find that “middle” state. You were caught in between two extremes and trying to find yourself—to rediscover Annie. How has that rediscovery process been?

AH: It's been a really long road … A lot of people ask me, “If you could go back in time, would you change [things]?” Honestly, I wouldn't because I just feel like I'm such a better person now, and I have so much more empathy and understanding for everyone. I feel like if this didn't happen, I would have remained that close-minded person who was easily manipulated.

In jail I was in isolated [confinement]. I was by myself mostly in a cell for 10 days straight with just my thoughts. All I had was books.

I did a lot of thinking and realized what led me to be so easily manipulated by Trump and the whole administration. It made me feel a part of [something]. It gave me that recognition that I always look[ed] for. It made me feel important.

 It took a lot of inner work and healing and for me to realize why and how all of that was able to happen to me.

I was really mad for a long time. I felt abandoned. I felt lied to. I felt like I was this loyal person who was taken advantage of and discarded.

When he started campaigning immediately after [the Capitol attack] and taking donations [while] I [was] losing everything—I was just like, “How dare you?” You promised all of us something and in return you just turned your back on us.  

That was the turning point for me with Trump. I saw through him and what kind of person he was. Then when I met [attorney Heather Shaner]. She slowly started to open my eyes [to] how I was brainwashed and targeted. She was the one that opened my eyes to start looking at different avenues and start thinking for myself instead of allowing myself to believe everything that I see and hear. 

MV: What is your opinion on the January 6 pardon? What are your thoughts on those pardoned who may not have gone through that reform process? 

AH: There's a lot of controversial pardons that I don't agree with. I think that people who get pardoned should show remorse. I think that there should be some sort of review board where the charges are looked at. They can't be violent. They have to show that they are willing to change, or learn, or just pay respect.

 But the people that he pardoned that were violent, that literally staged the attack. ... I'm not going to lie; a lot of us were drinking that day. It's really easy when you're having a good time and people are motivationally speaking and trying to provoke change.

I was so brainwashed that I left D.C. thinking that I was going to sue the FBI and the government. I was calling them Nazis. I never looked at myself like, “Man, I probably shouldn't have done that.”

Even going there and seeing nooses hanging and people dressed up in Revolutionary War clothing climbing on top of monuments at the nation's capital, you think something would go through your head, but it didn't.

I was around people in the Proud Boys.I didn't fully understand at the time everything that they were involved in. One of the people that I drove down made—I don't know if they were bombs. I don't know if they were explosives—but they were in my car. He had tactical gear and stuff like that.

 So for me to sit here and say I planned on going down there and having a peaceful protest, that would be a lie.

MV: There was a great contrast between you and the other subject of the documentary, Jack Griffith.

Near the end of the documentary, Shaner said that Griffith still viewed everything as a "game." Do you believe the pardons issued by Trump allow that game-like mentality to persist?

AH: Yeah, I think that one of the key differences with me and Jack was he wasn't really punished.

He didn't do jail time. I think he did three months of house arrest and maybe a year of probation. Whereas I did jail time and I was pretty much locked in for four years. It forced me to reflect and change.

I think that if the roles were reversed and I only got three months of house arrest and I didn't lose everything, I probably would have voted for Trump again. I wouldn't have been forced to have that journey that I had with myself. I think if Jack had to do jail time he would not be sitting there making a Trump video game.

I think people make him a martyr. I think it's really dangerous for anybody to do that with an individual.

{Editor's Note: According to The Tennessean in 2021, Griffith was sentenced to three years of probation, including 90 days of home detention. He was also ordered to pay $500 restitution to the federal government. In court, Griffith pled with the judge to spare him from prison, saying he had "grown as a person" since Jan. 6, according to the The Tennessean report.]

MV: Do you think Trump's pardons excuse violent actions and encourage further violence? 

AH: I do. I think that if he told everyone to gather again and protest at the Capitol, they would do it. I think that is dangerous. It's like nobody learned anything.

On that day, the thought had not occurred to me to just walk away. What made me leave was he told us to leave. That, to me, was terrifying. If he said go bomb whatever, some people would probably do it.

Nobody left that day until he said to leave. Despite the mayor of the city enforcing a curfew, despite the National Guard, Capitol police, and FBI, nobody cared. It wasn't until he said, “Go home, stand down,” that people left.

That to me was terrifying. He has that power over people to tell them what to do, how to act, what to say, where to go. I haven't seen many people like that in history before.

 And the ones that have been able to do that—manipulate mass amounts of people—have done it in an abusive way to serve their own agenda. It makes me scared that we are repeating history. Where is this going to lead? 

MV: You once believed in Trump's rhetoric. What was the process of removing yourself from that mindset? Furthermore, how do you feel for those who are still ideologically bound to Trump?

AH: I feel bad for them. I feel a lot of them are either uneducated, or victims of misinformation. Everybody depends on someone else to tell them how to feel and what to think. [Trump] says something and it's just like God's word. I was like that, too.

 The best thing I ever did was stop watching the news. I’ve been staying off social media for a while. It was the most liberating, freeing thing, to have my own thoughts and not worry about what people think.

I think social media is bad for humanity. I think that people need to learn how to exist without depending on [social media] and on other people's opinions.

Working for prison reform

AH: I've heard that Third World countries have better jails than we do. Every time I went in I would lose 10 pounds—a pound a day. When you do get food, they give you cabbage, cornbread, a cake. No juice, no fruit, no [clean] water. You're drinking brown water. You don't get a pillow. You don't get a blanket, it's just horrible.

A couple of times that I went, I wasn't in solitary confinement so I was able to talk to other women there. I realized that so many people are victims [of] the system. There's nothing in place for when they get out.

Say you have a drug case and you're in there for two years. You get out and you're just thrusted back into society. You have no money, no family, no assets. Nothing. What do you do? 

I feel like people need to understand that and give people the opportunity to have a chance.

I work with this woman now. She sets up care packages for women who are getting out. She goes to the jails and gives them classes on how to interview for a job, how to raise your credit score. She prepares clothing, an outfit for an interview, an outfit for when you walk out of jail, a bus pass, a hotel room, [etc].

She's trying to put together a state-funded facility for women transitioning from jail to society, just to help them so that they don't resort back to old behaviors. The system sets everybody up to fail. We don't have any places where women can go—other than domestic violence shelters.

People need to be more aware of that and more compassionate. I didn't see it until I was in it.

Image