Inside the Washington, D.C., jail, where some defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been held for a year or more, a bitter divide is growing. A combination of the stress of criminal cases and a fight over more than a million dollars donated to support the defendants has contributed to the rift, NPR reports. One inmate described the situation as "too many rats together in a small cage for too long." He added, "Tempers naturally get short," with "cliques solidifying further into independent 'camps' as time progresses." In the weeks after the riot at the U.S. Capitol, judges decided group of hose facing the most serious charges or those who prosecutors worried might flee the U.S. should be locked up while they awaited trial. A few dozen were incarcerated in the D.C. jail, where officials decided to detain them in one section known as C2B.
Initially, the inmates seemed so unified and bonded that a defense attorney told a judge the jail had developed a "cult-like" atmosphere. Experts worried that the jail was radicalizing the inmates. Now, conflicts have emerged between the inmates and grown into what another attorney called a "schism" and what an inmate compared to a "middle school lunchroom." The main driver of this conflict, according to C2B inmates, along with their attorneys and family members, is the growing pool of money donated in the name of the Jan. 6 defendants. An alphabet soup of groups has sprung up to support the Jan. 6 defendants — from A4J (Americans For Justice Inc.), to CAPP (Citizens Against Political Persecution), to PFP (Patriot Freedom Project) and PMP (Patriot Mail Project). As donations have grown, so have resentments.
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