This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

WASHINGTON – For the first time in months, having recently been released from another nightmarish stint in solitary confinement, Jan. 6 political prisoner Zachary Rehl reached out to WorldNetDaily … with good news.

With President-elect Donald Trump slated to take office on Jan. 20, Rehl says he no longer fears the prospect of a decade or more behind bars for what was essentially a "thought crime."

In an email from FCI Petersburg, the medium-security correctional facility in Virginia where Rehl is serving a 15-year sentence, he details how the other inmates incarcerated there cheered and congratulated him on the night of Nov. 5, amid the prospects of his release and exoneration by presidential pardon.

Many of the other prisoners he is housed with are doing time for murder, rape, robberies and other felony offenses that warrant incarceration in a medium-security facility. Nearly all the inmates in the prison resoundingly agree that Rehl is no criminal and is being held captive as a political prisoner, the Marine veteran explained.

"Even ones who wanted [Trump] to lose, they still shook my hand and congratulated me on my pending release," Rehl wrote in an email exclusively to WND.

"At the end of the day," he said, "no one likes to see another person suffer behind these walls that don't deserve it, and I think it's a nod to my character that all people I encountered felt that I shouldn't be here and were happy for me that I get to go home."

Trump's survival of the two assassination attempts was due to divine intervention, Rehl contends, a sign from God that the torturous incarceration he is enduring will soon come to an end.

"I had some worries of fraud, but after I saw God was on our side and saved him from that shooting, all doubt in my mind left and I was 100% sure he would win," he wrote.

Holidays, especially Christmas, have been dreadful for the past four years since the government confiscated Rehl's freedom and upturned his life. But this Christmas, the weight of the world is no longer on his shoulders as it had been.

"With Trump on his way back to the White House, I surprisingly enjoy the Christmas music being played again. Even though I'm not home with my wife and daughters, I'm going to be soon and it's a priceless feeling," he wrote. "I'm mentally home with them right now. This prison only has my physical self, and they only have it for about another month and some change."

Rehl says his "message to President Trump is simple": "I look forward to meeting him and shaking his hand. He's clearly the best president in our history as a nation; I can't think of a bigger honor than to meet him. I hope I can somehow contribute to the success of the next four years and beyond as well. There is nothing I have ever been so passionate about and that is fighting for America and everyone in it. I just hope there is a role for me to help out one way or the other! I will continue to listen to God and keep walking the path set out for me though, which I'm sure I will be successful with no matter what that is."

The government has done a number on Jan. 6 prisoner Zachary Rehl that would understandably leave most without faith and in a state of near-insanity.

The father of two, a Marine vet and former leader of the Pennsylvania Proud Boys chapter, was convicted or multiple felonies for trespassing in the U.S. Capitol building.

As WND has reported, at the Jan. 6, 2021 "Save America" rally, Rehl was shot multiple times with rubber bullets as the police indiscriminately gassed and threw flashbang grenades into the moderately peaceful crowd. He then walked through the building for approximately 12 minutes and took a few selfies.

Rehl's wife was six months pregnant when the FBI barged into their home and dragged him away at gunpoint in a predawn raid. He and his co-defendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Dominic Pezzola and Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman, and were locked in solitary confinement, or the "hole," for nearly 18 months in six-by-eight-foot cells at the Alexandria Detention Facility in northern Virginia.

In Alexandria, they reported that they were practically starved to death, usually served small portions of rotten food and permitted out of their windowless cage for just 15 minutes a day to use the shower, use the microwave and use the surveilled phone.

While Rehl, Nordean, Biggs, Pezzola and Tarrio were segregated in torturous isolation alongside serial pedophiles and murderers, the Lockerbie Bomber was being detained in the same facility in general population.

The bomber, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, was a Libyan intelligence official who bombed a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground.

'Seditious conspiracy'

On May 4, 2023, Rehl and his co-defendants were convicted by a jury of "Seditious Conspiracy, Obstruction of an Official Proceeding and Aiding and Abetting, Destruction of Government Property and Aiding and Abetting, Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Disorderly Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds."

Immediately being found guilty of seditious conspiracy, the Marine vet was stripped of his military service benefits and forced to pay back every dollar of benefits he received after the Capitol riot.

In January 2023, jury selection of the Proud Boys leadership trial was what defense attorneys claim was a complete mockery which obliterated the rule of law.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge, gave jurors a litmus test asking them each if they were employed or had a relationship with the government, whether they attended a Black Lives Matter rally and/or a women's march and their view of the Proud Boys.

Each D.C. resident that qualified to sit on the jury resoundingly affirmed that were ardent Democrats and leftwing activists. Also, each juror echoed propaganda disseminated by the mainstream media claiming the Proud Boys were a group of "white supremacists," "insurrectionists" and "seditionists."

The defense counsel for the five defendants repeatedly objected to admitting these clearly far-left activists on to the jury and insisted endlessly that the trial should be relocated to a jurisdiction that did not have a 92-percent voting rate for Joe Biden.

For the duration of the nearly 7-month-long trial, only the jurors wore masks in adherence with government recommended COVID protocols throughout the entire day. Prosecutors complied with the mask mandate, until the second the jurors left the room, when they would take them off practically gasping for air, a charade emblematic of the entire kangaroo trial.

Despite GOP members of Congress sitting across the street from the courthouse where every Jan. 6 defendant, including President-elect Donald Trump, has been tried, there was no one to turn to for remedy. The conclusion was known from the start, and throughout the trial the only hope for justice was an appeal or a pardon, if Trump would somehow overcome all the obstacles against him and win in November 2024.

On Aug. 31, 2021, Judge Kelly viscerally took glee in sentencing Rehl to 15 years in prison. Weeks after he was sentenced, the U.S. Department of Justice appealed the sentences of Rehl and his co-defendants … demanding even more prison time.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough filed a motion on Sept. 15, 2023, asking for Rehl to be sentenced to 30 years in prison.

As WND has previously reported, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Treasury Department then gave Rehl and his family notice that he would be forced to pay back every dollar of military benefits he had received after the Capitol riot, amounting to approximately $100,000.

Rehl's wife continues to struggle to make ends meet while raising their now 3-year-old daughter. Association with individuals who are deemed "domestic terrorists" by the federal government has made it tough for a now-single mother to secure employment, while the expense of legal representation for nearly 4 years easily costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But Rehl has remained steadfast, with faith in God throughout this whole tragic ordeal, assured miracles would materialize, and that Trump would secure a victory that would eventually turn the horror he and his loved ones have endured into just a bad memory.

Rehl doubled down on his support of Trump over the summer, permanently etching the words "Hold the line" on his right arm alongside a jail-tattooed sketch of Donald Trump, and rested assured that the good guys would soon take back power and restore the rule of law.

And he was right.

READ J6 PRISONER ZACHARY REHL'S FULL LETTER:

I'm doing great. I was good before the election. I was certain Trump would win.

I had some worries of fraud, but after I saw God was on our side and saved him from that shooting, all doubt in my mind left and I was 100% sure he would win.

We get such bad news in here. I don't know how many people asked me if I was worried about him losing because he was down in all the polls. I would reply every time, "Don't worry about that trash, it's all a scam, the polls, he's going to win in a landslide! No way that idiot [Kamala Harris], who can barely string two sentences together, has any shot to beat him!"

Then I would tell them to "Have some faith, it's going to be alright!"

I gave a lot of people hope and it paid off when he won. It's a good feeling being right, especially when you are so certain of something, when so many others think you are delusional for thinking it.

What I mean is, like all actions, there is an equal and opposite reaction, so for every person hoping Trump would win that talked to me, there was another who would laugh at mentioning the mere prospect of him winning. Who is the "delusional" one now?

Seems I was the only one in the whole prison complex that actually "knew."

Everyone turned out to be a good sport over him winning though, the haters anyway.

Even ones who wanted him to lose, they still shook my hand and congratulated me on my pending release.

At the end of the day, no one likes to see another person suffer behind these walls that don't deserve it, and I think it's a nod to my character that all people I encountered felt that I shouldn't be here and were happy for me that I get to go home.

I obviously sat up all night and waited for the election results, but CNN, which was all that was on here, sort of slipped up and gave away who won at around 11 pm when they "checked in" with the Harris camp and reported that it was eerily quiet.

CNN then checked into the Trump camp where the venue just started blasting "YMCA" by the Village People.

At that moment the election was confirmed for me, so as the states started rolling in with results as the night went on, it was only more and more exciting.

The icing on the cake was obviously when Pennsylvania was called – my home state, which ended all speculation for the night over who won.

Thank you, Pennsylvania, and job well done for showing up to vote in such convincing numbers!

It's an amazing feeling though, after everything I have been through, that it's finally over.

I couldn't stomach the holidays the last three years.

It was gut wrenching listening to happy music this time of year, so I avoided TV and the radio so I didn't have to hear it.

With Trump on his way back to the White House, I surprisingly enjoy the Christmas music being played again.

Even though I'm not home with my wife and daughters, I'm going to be soon and it's a priceless feeling.

I'm mentally home with them right now. This prison only has my physical self and they only have it for about another month and some change.

I'm extremely excited to see where this next chapter of life takes me, and I'm thrilled I get to walk back into a world with President Trump back in charge. The world is going to be much better off, and I have high hopes for his second term – not just for myself and my family and friends, but for everyone.

Elon Musk is my other favorite billionaire, other than President Trump. I wrote so many papers on his companies in college and read two biographies on him, so seeing these two men team up to save America is the most amazing thing for me.

I love it.

I don't have any doubt in my mind that he will do a great job cleaning up the budgets with the DOGE! I just hope they can overcome the biggest obstacle with his proposed cuts, Congress. If I had anything to say to him, though, it would be to give him a heads-up about X, which still has issues with bad actors within the company that are shadow banning, or flat-out suspending conservative accounts, like the account made for and operated by my wife, for raising awareness to my plight. Other than that, good luck with the DOGE and keep kicking ass in the world! Next up, MARS!

My message to President Trump is simple, I look forward to meeting him and shaking his hand, he's clearly the best President in our history as a nation, I can't think of a bigger honor than to meet him. I hope I can somehow contribute to the success of the next 4 years and beyond as well. There has nothing I have ever been so passionate about and that is fighting for America and everyone in it, I just hope there is a role for me to help one way or the other! I will continue to listen to God and keep walking the path set out for me though, which I'm sure I will be successful with no matter what that is.

The tattoo aging like fine wine, I hope Trump has seen it or will get to see it. A couple months ago I was around a few people who were talking about the tat before the election, and someone asked me if I would regret it if he lost. Some people were like, oh damn, and laughed. So, I thought about it for a second and said, "He won't lose, I'm not worried about it." No regrets!

Next month we are out of here!

Merry Christmas!