Marcy Wheeler this morning points to a ProPublica post on the redicalization of Jan. 6 insurrectionists held in jail awaiting hearings. Guy Reffitt’s wife helped him draft the letter below. Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto from the wilds of Montana it is not. Three Percenters, etc. are more about public cosplay and mayhem than mail bombs and manifestos.
ProPublica paints a picture of a man radicalized before his arrest. He is a “serious danger … not only to his family and Congress, but to the entire system of justice,” prosecutors allege:
Reffitt saw his actions on Jan. 6 as a critical step in protecting his wife and kids from what he viewed as a decades-long American slide toward “tyranny,” according to his text messages.
“We watch the people of other countries rise up against authoritarianism and think, how sad they must be to want freedom and liberty so much,” the letter said. “Here, the more you try to divide, bend or even break America. The more The Republic of The People will stand indivisible and resolute.”
Reffitt’s son covertly recorded conversations with his father that have shown up in court filings as evidence that Reffitt came to the Capitol armed and with violent intentions.
“You’ll find out that I had every constitutional right to carry a weapon and take over the Congress, as we tried to do,” he said in one recording, according to a transcript in court files. Jackson Reffitt, 18, has since moved out of the family home and is raising money to support himself and his schooling.
In another excerpt in court files, Guy Reffitt was blunt: “I did bring a weapon on property that we own. Federal grounds or not. The law is written, but it doesn’t mean it’s right law. The people that were around me were all carrying too.”
Reffitt’s wife and daughters said his statements were more benign than they sound — that Reffitt is notorious for his hyperbole and left the Capitol when he learned rioters had made it inside. Nicole Reffitt said she has long referred to her husband teasingly as “Queenie” because of his flair for the dramatic. Prosecutors have not accused him of entering the Capitol building or hurting anyone.
In their most recent filing, prosecutors added new evidence to their case against Guy Reffitt. They obtained a recording of a Jan. 10 Zoom meeting involving Reffitt and two other Three Percenters. In it, Reffitt allegedly said he helped lead the charge on the Capitol with a .40-caliber pistol at his side, at one point telling a U.S. Capitol Police officer who was firing nonlethal rounds at him, “Sorry, darling. You better get a bigger damn gun.”
Despite evidence that several groups came prepared to do coordinated battle (many brought communications gear, one brought pipe bombs, another Molotov cocktails), Reffitt’s letter claims there is no organization among the detainees.
During the House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, Rep. Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, claimed the Justice Department was “harassing peaceful patriots.” Sure, most of them were peaceful until they were not. Neither was Kaczynski or Timothy McVeigh until….