On April 9, 2025, J6 defendant Ryan Zink, with the help of his attorney Roger Roots, obtained an order from Chief Judge James E. Boasberg that effectively opened up the truth about J6 to the public.
On March 22, 2025, Roots filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to lift the protective order restricting access to the global discovery for January 6.
This trove of discovery—consisting of over 8 million files—has been hidden from the public for over four years.
The government failed to file a response to the motion, forcing Boasberg to grant it.
This ruling effectively did what the Republican-led Congress couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do: give the American people unfiltered access to the discovery materials that could rewrite the narrative of January 6.
But the victory was short-lived. Just hours later, DOJ J6 prosecutor Jennifer Blackwell and Trump-appointed United States Attorney Ed Martin filed a motion to claw back the order. The status of the discovery hangs in the balance until the court issues its next order.
Zink’s Motion: A Fight for Truth and the First Amendment
Zink’s motion, submitted by Roots, argued that the protective order was an unjust barrier preventing defendants, journalists, researchers, and the public from seeing the full scope of evidence collected from January 6.
Zink and Roots laid out a compelling case rooted in constitutional rights and common sense, making it clear this wasn’t just about Zink, but about the public’s right to access the truth.
The motion pointed to four key ways that allowing public access to the discovery is a gamechanger: it might show misconduct by law enforcement, back up claims of entrapment, support self-defense arguments for J6 defendants, and bolster First Amendment protections.
Roots compared the situation to civil rights-era sit-ins at Woolworth lunch counters, where protesters were accused of “attacking” staff but barred from showing the real story.
“Zink and other defendants, and journalists and researchers and the public as a whole, have a right to examine and publish this footage, evidence and discovery,” the filing declared.
Roots hammered home the point that most of the footage—including Capitol hallways and public areas—wasn’t some top-secret stash.
“Millions of tourists have seen and been in [these] areas,” he wrote.
The motion leaned heavily on Supreme Court precedent, citing cases like Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia (1980) and Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court (1982), which affirm the public’s First Amendment right to open court proceedings.
It’s a “presumption of openness,” Roots argued, baked into our justice system.
The motion also tapped into a bigger issue: the public’s right to know what’s going on, especially in a case as explosive as January 6.
Roots called it a matter of “democratic values of accountability and openness,” quoting decisions that say hiding court records from the public—especially when the government is involved—flies in the face of justice.
With President Trump himself calling the J6 prosecutions a “grave national injustice,” the motion argued that transparency here is critical.
The Court’s Bombshell Ruling—and the DOJ’s Panic
On April 9, 2025, Chief Judge Boasberg dropped a bombshell minute order: “As the Government has not opposed Defendant’s Motion to Lift Protective Order, the Court ORDERS that the Motion is GRANTED, and the Protective Order is LIFTED.”
Just like that, the floodgates were opened. The discovery databases—Evidence.com and Relativity consisting of over 8 millions files, videos, and documents—were poised to become public domain, a treasure trove for anyone seeking the unvarnished truth about January 6.
The significance of this order cannot be overstated. For years, J6 defendants, journalists, and interested members of the public demanded the release of J6 footage and evidence.
Zink and Roots, with one bold move, did what the GOP couldn’t. But the celebration didn’t last long.
On the same day, the protective order was lifted, Jennifer Blackwell, a DOJ prosecutor, filed a motion for leave to oppose Zink’s motion—after the fact—and begged the court to reverse its order.
Trump-appointed United States attorney Ed Martin’s name also appeared on the government’s filing without his signature, The story is still unfolding, and it is unclear whether Judge Boasberg will roll back his order.
As of this writing, the status of the J6 discovery is still in question.
Arguably, the floodgates were open, and the government’s motion did nothing to close them. But if the court issues a second order reversing its earlier order, what does that mean for documents and videos that were released?
Will the DOJ seek penalties and sanctions against people who released documents relying on the first order? All of this is unknown.
What is known is that this fight is bigger than Ryan Zink. It’s about whether the public can access the raw evidence of January 6—or whether the government gets to keep spinning its narrative unchallenged.
Zink and Roots’ efforts impact the 1,600 J6 defendants who hope to clear their names by exposing the truth.
The J6ers want the public to see the whole story, while the government wants to hide the evidence from the public. That by itself should raise suspicion about the government’s narrative.
The government’s narrative that J6 was the worst event in American history is a lie. The truth is that the Government’s targeting of J6 defendants was the worst widescale government-sponsored lawfare waged against the American people in our country’s history.
The discovery is only the beginning. What is still left unanswered is who gave the orders to devote unprecedented government resources to the years-long pursuit of senior citizen grandmothers for trespassing during a 3-hour scuffle that did not rise to the level of a single hour of the BLM protests that ravaged the country for months in the spring, summer, and fall of 2020.
If the truth is not uncovered during the Trump administration, and if the tools that allowed the government to target its citizens are not dismantled over the next three-and-a-half years, may God help us on January 20, 2029, if a new Democrat administration comes to power.
The post J6 Defendant Ryan Zink Scores Major Victory as Court Lifts Protective Order — DOJ Fights Back to Keep Truth Hidden appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.