A defense attorney representing MAGA rioter Thomas Sibick on Tuesday warned that a group of jailed January 6th defendants are becoming "cult-like" after being imprisoned together in the same wing in a Washington D.C. jail.
As reported by NBC 4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, Sibick's lawyer claimed in court that the jailed MAGA rioters have all developed rituals in which they all sing "The Star Spangled Banner" together at 9 p.m. every night.
The attorney then said that the environment has grown so "toxic" that Sibick preferred to be held in solitary confinement rather than be exposed to it.
Toward the end of the hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that reports of the "toxic environment" in the prison raise "serious serious questions" about whether jailed MAGA rioters should be held together ahead of their trials.
Vice News last week first reported on the so-called "Patriot Wing" of the D.C. jail, and the publication spoke with an extremism expert who similarly argued that it was unwise to keep all the defendants in the same place.
"I do think the fact that the J6 defendants who are currently being held pre-trial... having them all together where they can seemingly communicate by newsletter, is likely to foster continued feelings of anti-government mentality among those individuals who are being prosecuted," Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at the George Washington University's Program on Extremism, explained.