Pam Hemphill was labelled 'MAGA granny' for storming the Capitol. Five years on, she's a very different person

Exclusive: Pam Hemphill doesn't quite recognise the person who stormed the US Capitol alongside around 2500 others on January 6, 2021.

The Idaho grandmother, 72, was once a fierce Trump supporter – so loyal was Hemphill to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement that she refused to accept the president's 2020 election defeat and joined the thousands.

Hemphill pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour count of parading, demonstrating or picketing at the Capitol Building and was sentenced to 60 days in prison.

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Do you have a story? Contact reporter April Glover at april.glover@nine.com.au

That may have been the end of it.

But when Trump won the election in November 2024, he quickly granted blanket clemency to all 1600 people convicted or awaiting trial for offences related to January 6.

"I already predicted he would do that," Hemphill told nine.com.au.

"I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised at all. Because if he didn't release all of them, then his narrative would have holes in it."

Hemphill had been on an emotional and existential journey for the four years before she was offered a pardon.

A watershed session with her therapist ultimately shifted her perspective.

"For a while... I was still hanging on to it. [I thought] I shouldn't have been arrested. I didn't do anything really that bad," Hemphill recalls.

"I didn't push down the barriers, I didn't hurt officers. But [the therapist], he said, 'Ms. Hemphill, you were not a victim, you could have left'.

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"I got home that night and realised he was right."

Hemphill, now retired, worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor for decades.

She knows intimately what it is like to turn your life around, shed your old self and start anew.

"One of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is, when you're wrong, you have to promptly admit it," she said.

"I didn't promptly admit it, but I'm getting there.

"I was wrong. I broke the law."

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Trump took notice of Hemphill's prison sentence when he mentioned on Truth Social that it was "horrible" she spent more time behind bars than Hunter Biden.

Hemphill then publicly pleaded with the president to stop labelling her as a "victim" of January 6.

Standing up against Trump was "frightening," Hemphill said.

She took it a step further two years later.

In January 2025, when Hemphill was offered a get out of jail free card from Trump, she promptly refused it.

Hemphill stayed on federal probation for another nine months and her criminal record remained unchanged instead of accepting a full pardon.

"Everybody was telling me it would almost be impossible. Nobody's done it," she said.

But all it took was a few forms and a call with the Department of Justice.

Hemphill said the confirmation letter saying she was not officially pardoned felt "freeing".

"It was like having a leech on your body, and you want to get it off," she said.

"It was a lie. The DOJ was not weaponised against me."

On the five-year anniversary of the historic Capitol insurrection, Hemphill said she is proud of her political U-turn.

Once labelled the "MAGA granny" by social media users in 2021, Hemphill has shaken off the MAGA label altogether.

Now, she's a retired granny who spends her time protesting against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"I have switched parties to Democrat. I voted for Harris," she said.

"I've learned a lot since then.

"It felt more like this is where I belong, because I think I was just following my family."

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