This Company Behind January 6 Just Got Paid — Again

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.comThere’s a basic rule in a functioning democracy: when an institution fails catastrophically, the people and networks connected to that failure don’t get rewarded. They get examined. Audited. Investigated. Cut off from public money until the country can look itself in the mirror again.That’s how it’s supposed to work.Instead, five years after January 6 — after the Capitol was overrun, after officers were beaten, after I thought I was going to die doing my job — we’re watching the same political machinery that helped stage the day get welcomed right back into the system.Not with shame. With contracts.The Michael Fanone Show is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The New York Times reported that Event Strategies — the firm that handled logistics for the January 6 rally on the Ellipse — has received more than $13 million in federal contracts since Trump returned to power. And some of that work wasn’t even put out for real competition. Agencies used exceptions that allowed them to steer contracts directly to one company. Multiple times. In at least one instance, a deal was reportedly inked essentially at the last minute — the day before the event it was meant to support.That’s not “coincidence.” That’s access. That’s favor. That’s a system telling you, quietly, who it’s willing to forgive and who it’s willing to pay.And before anybody tries to muddy the waters: yes, political event production is a legitimate business. Yes, not every contractor is a criminal. That’s not the point.The point is this: Event Strategies wasn’t some neutral vendor that happened to be nearby. They’ve been part of Trump’s political infrastructure for years — staging major moments, building the visuals, making the spectacle work. They helped launch his campaign in 2015. They’ve pulled in tens of millions from political committees supporting him over the years. They were inside the operation long before January 6.And on January 6, they weren’t spectators. They were part of the machine that put people on that lawn, pointed them toward the Capitol, and helped create the scene that turned into violence.Afterward, nobody at the company was charged. The business kept moving. The work continued through campaigns. And now, with power back in Trump’s hands, the government is cutting them checks again — sometimes without letting anyone else even get a shot.Here’s why that matters.Because January 6 wasn’t an “incident.” It was an assault on the peaceful transfer of power, followed by years of normalization. By minimization. By excuses. By pardons. By people in suits telling the country it wasn’t what we all watched with our own eyes.When the same networks keep their proximity to power — and then start collecting taxpayer-funded contracts on top of it — it sends a message: there was no real consequence. The system can be attacked, and the people who helped build the stage can still get paid by the system afterward.That message isn’t abstract. It shapes what happens next.If you want to know how democracies slide, it’s not always a dramatic collapse. Sometimes it’s the quiet decision to reward the behavior that broke things in the first place. It’s the slow conversion of accountability into inconvenience.And I’ll be honest: for me, this isn’t academic.I remember the tunnel. I remember the fear. I remember the moment it clicked that this wasn’t a crowd that got out of hand — it was a mob that believed the rules didn’t apply anymore. I remember wondering if I was going to make it home.So watching the people who helped make that day possible get welcomed back into the federal contracting pipeline doesn’t feel like a “government procurement story.”It feels like betrayal. Again.And it raises the question we keep dodging as a country: what are we willing to accept now? What are we willing to normalize? What are we willing to pay for — literally — with our own tax dollars?Because January 6 isn’t just about memory. It’s about tolerance. Whether we’re going to treat an attack on democracy as disqualifying… or as something you can ride out until the next contract cycle.If this doesn’t sit right with you, don’t just absorb it and move on. Share this. Talk about it. Make it inconvenient to bury. That’s the only thing that ever forces accountability in a system that prefers forgetting.And if you want us to keep pulling on threads like this — the money, the networks, the quiet rewards for public betrayal — consider becoming a paid subscriber. This work stays independent because people choose to fund it.🟧 Paid subscribers get 15% off your next merch order🟧 Founding Members get 20% off for lifeYou’ll get the link in your welcome email.GET DISCOUNTS BELOW! ENJOY!