Trump brags about No. 1 digital hit by prison choir
Donald Trump likes to play the J6 Prison Choir at his rallies.
Now he’s celebrating his Billboard success with the group in front of donors.
Trump bragged during a swanky private lunch event at his Mar-a-Lago Club Saturday that a recording he made with the group of individuals jailed on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol hit number one on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales Chart.
The Republican National Committee is hosting a spring retreat for top donors at the Four Seasons luxury oceanside hotel in Palm Beach, and as part of the weekend attendees were invited to a lunch with Trump at his nearby Mar-a-Lago estate.
During the lunch, Trump showcased a framed plaque commemorating the Billboard success for the song “Justice for All” by the J6 Prison Choir, according to two sources at the event and a photo shared with USA TODAY.
The Trump campaign said in a readout of the meeting sent to reporters that Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump “presented President Trump with a Billboard Music award for the No. 1 song ‘Justice for All.’ ”
The recording was released commercially on March 3, 2023. It features Trump saying the “Pledge of Allegiance” while the Prison Choir sings the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
In the picture shared with USA TODAY, the former president and Lara
Trump are posing next to the framed Billboard acknowledgment Saturday.
“He said something to the effect that, ‘I was approached about helping out, I did it as a favor, I didn’t think much about it, next thing I know, it’s top of the charts! I mean can you believe it? It was higher than Taylor Swift!’ ” an individual at the luncheon told USA TODAY.
Another person at the luncheon who saw Trump with the framed Billboard acknowledgment said, “I’m not sure what the hell it was, it was related to music. I had no idea. I had never heard of it happening.”
The attack on the Capitol, when a mob of his supporters stormed the building to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory, led to Trump’s second impeachment and contributed to felony charges being filed against the former president for efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Yet Trump has embraced the Jan. 6 defendants on the campaign trail, calling them “unbelievable patriots” and “hostages” who have “been treated terribly and very unfairly.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced in March that 1,358 people have been charged with Jan. 6 crimes.
Of those, 769 pled guilty and another 152 have been found guilty at trial so far.
An analysis published by Just Security, an online forum hosted by the New York University School of Law, found that the vast majority of Jan. 6 defendants held in the D.C. Jail on March 13, 2023, were accused of assaulting officers. An individual who advised the group that made the recording told the Washington Post that it was made in February of 2023 at the D.C. jail, but said she did not know who the singers are.
About 400 people attended Saturday’s Mar-a-Lago event. A photo shared by the Trump campaign shows vice presidential contenders such as Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, New York U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance on stage with Trump, along with others such as former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose prison sentence was commuted by Trump after he was convicted of corruption charges.