How My Hometown Produced a Jan. 6 Sedition Suspect

[Nevilledog]

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Justin Hendrix
@justinhendrix
How My Hometown Produced a Jan. 6 Sedition Suspect: One writer discovers her small Virginia town’s underside of conspiracy, guns and anti-government belief

washingtonpost.com
How My Hometown Produced a Jan. 6 Sedition Suspect
One writer discovers her small Virginia town’s underside of conspiracy, guns and anti-government sentiment.
6:00 PM · May 23, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/05/23/how-my-hometown-produced-jan-6-sedition-suspect/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/RKRdj


On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Thomas Caldwell and his wife, Sharon, woke up in a hotel room in Arlington, Va., just outside the nation’s capital. The couple from rural Clarke County, Va., traveled with several members of the Oath Keepers extremist group into Washington, D.C., to protest the results of the presidential election, which they believed had been stolen.

Tom, a tall 66-year-old retired Navy intelligence officer with a curved mustache, wore a Washington football cap and carried a large American flag. Sharon, a petite blonde, sported a crimson Trump pompom hat and a flag bandanna.

The Caldwells attended President Donald Trump’s rally outside the White House and moved with the crowd to the U.S. Capitol grounds around 12:45 p.m. What happened after that is contested. At least four of the people in their original party — including Jessica Watkins and Donovan Crowl from the Ohio Oath Keepers — appear in videos wearing a uniform of vests, helmets and goggles, striding up the east Capitol stairs in a line. Watkins and Crowl forcibly entered the building around 2:30 p.m., sharing a video on social media in which Watkins proclaims, “We’re in the f---ing Capitol, bro.”

The Caldwells remained outside but advanced up a set of stairs on the west side of the building to the terraces. “I said, ‘Well, if everybody’s doing it, since nobody’s saying don’t do it, maybe we should go,’ ” Tom told the podcast “The Political Prisoner,” which focuses on defending Jan. 6 rioters, this past April. According to court filings, after the building was breached, Tom sent text and social media messages such as “Us storming the castle. Please share... I am such an instigator” and “If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians. They ran off and were spirited away through their underground tunnels like the rats they were.” Afterward, Tom and Sharon drove some 90 miles west to their farm in the Shenandoah Valley, leaving the day’s chaos behind them.

*snip*

[Baitball Blogger]

1. A Navy Intelligence Officer thought it was okay, because nobody told them not do it.

THIS is what our military is made out of? Just a bunch of mindless followers that are easy to trigger to turn violent against their own fellow Americans?

This is disrespecting the good veterans AND American citizens.

[Samrob]

2. Love how government haters gladly accept $5000 monthly checks and government contracts from

the government they hate and tried to overthrow. SMH Also sounds to me like the use of a questionable disability to get government contracts for their "business" was a scam against the government. What "disability" allows you take part in the J6 insurrection, full force? I think the government should discontinue all Federal benefits to anyone found to have taken part in the J6 insurrection at the Capitol.