WASHINGTON — Five days before Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 election, Virginia resident Thomas Caldwell said he would start a civil war if former President Donald Trump didn’t remain in power, jurors heard Friday.
Caldwell, a 68-year-old resident of Berryville, Virginia, is one of five defendants on trial in federal court in D.C. on multiple conspiracy charges connected to the Oath Keepers’ alleged role in the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building. Over two weeks of evidence and testimony, prosecutors have said Caldwell moved quickly from a chance meeting with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in late 2020 to becoming an integral part of the group's planning for Jan. 6.
In opening arguments last week, jurors first heard a different portrayal of Caldwell from his attorney, David Fischer. During a fiery speech promising to exonerate Caldwell at the end of the trial, Fischer told the jury his client was a disabled Navy veteran “who couldn’t storm his way out of a paper bag.” He slammed the FBI for conducting what he portrayed as a slipshod investigation, accused the Justice Department of pulling a “bait and switch” by charging Caldwell as a leader of the group in some of the earliest Jan. 6 criminal filings – but later replacing him at the top of the indictment with Rhodes – and said the trip Caldwell and his wife Sharon took to the Capitol on Jan. 6 amounted to a “date.” Fischer told jurors the reconnaissance they would hear Caldwell conducted ahead of Jan. 6 was nothing more than a senior citizen concerned about port-a-potty access, and told them Caldwell only managed to make it to the restricted Lower West Terrace of the Capitol that day because he had taken too much of his prescribed oxymorphone.
Caldwell has claimed in court filings to have held a top secret security clearance since 1979 – first as a Naval intelligence officer and then during a brief stint with the FBI. Public records show he worked as the president of a Berryville-based business called Progressive Technologies Management, which was granted five federal contracts for computer systems and data processing services between 2004 and 2007. Caldwell also has a 100% service-related disability rating from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to Fischer.
Since opening statements, however, jurors have seen mounting evidence portraying a very different Thomas Caldwell – one who was in contact with multiple militia groups, who was heavily involved in pre-Jan. 6 planning and who spoke openly, and repeatedly, about violence.
'I Have Allied Myself with You Guys'
According to messages entered into evidence by the prosecution, Caldwell attended a Stop the Steal event in Virginia after the Nov. 3, 2020, election. Also in attendance were Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and the militia's North Carolina state leader Doug Smith. A day later, Caldwell sent a message to an associate named Adrian Grimes describing his meeting with some “VERY interesting special operators.” Over the next two months, according to messages entered into evidence, Caldwell joined the Oath Keepers at two pro-Trump events in D.C. Before one, the Million MAGA March on Nov. 15, 2020, Caldwell wrote to Grimes about his desire to see former President Donald Trump remain in power.
“If we cannot get the president another term, we are well and truly f***ed,” Caldwell wrote. “If we don’t start mowing down masses of these s***balls they will come for all of us. It’s kill or be killed I am afraid. I don’t want to live in a communist country. I kinda hope there is some s*** tomorrow in some ways just so we can get ON with it.”
Two days later, in a message to another associate, Caldwell described the size of the crowd at the march, writing, “At LEAST a million. We could have burned the congress to the ground if we had wanted to.”
During opening arguments, Caldwell’s attorney said his client could not have been a member of the Oath Keepers because he had never paid the $50 fee to join the national organization. But in a Dec. 4, 2020, message to North Carolina Oath Keeper Paul Stamey, who was in D.C. on Jan. 6 but has not been charged, Caldwell made it clear he saw himself as part of their cause.
“I have allied myself with you guys as you can tell,” Caldwell told Stamey. “I think I still have a lot to give especially if you start operating in my backyard as it were.”
The same day, Caldwell said he had been discussing with Smith, the North Carolina state leader, about planning “a MUCH Bigger op, for like when we have to roll into town to actually save the Republic.” Smith has said his group began distancing itself from Rhodes and the national Oath Keepers organization after November 2020 and now no longer associates with the militia.
Prosecutors showed jurors dozens of messages from Caldwell showing contacts with at least four different militia groups leading up to Jan. 6, including the Oath Keepers, co-defendant Jessica Watkins’ Ohio State Regular Militia and the Three Percenters.
Prosecutors have also showed jurors evidence of Caldwell’s extensive involvement in planning for Oath Keepers appearances, which they referred to as “ops,” including:
- Writing and sending an “ops plan” to the North Carolina chapter for a pro-Trump rally in D.C. in December. The plan called for Oath Keepers to bring “striking weapons” and burner phones and encouraged the use of “non-attributable” weapons that were to be wiped down after the op.
- Helping coordinate the Oath Keepers’ quick reaction force (QRF) stationed in Arlington on Jan. 6, including renting a room for equipment to be stored in and discussions about the possibility of acquiring boats to transport firearms quickly across the Potomac to waiting Oath Keepers. Oath Keeper Terry Cummings, who was in D.C. with the militia on Jan. 6 but has not been charged, testified earlier in the week about the large number of weapons the group had gathered at the hotel.
- Taking dozens of photographs of key streets and intersections and developing travel maps from the QRF hotel to the Capitol as part of a “pre-strike rece” (reconnaissance) before Jan. 6.
In fact, prosecutors said, messages Caldwell sent to Donovan Crowl, a member of Watkins’ militia group charged in connection with the riot, show he viewed his role in planning Oath Keepers’ ops as being a potential challenge to Rhodes’ leadership.
“He might see me as a threat, though I have no desire to replace him,” Caldwell told Crowl in a message on Dec. 4, 2020.
'The Kettle is Set to Boil'
Fischer and other Oath Keepers defense attorneys have argued the militia’s preparations leading up to Jan. 6 – including the cache of weapons stored outside the city – were defensive in nature. In the days just prior to the joint session of Congress, however, messages entered by prosecutors showed Caldwell taking a markedly belligerent tone.
“I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic,” Caldwell wrote in a message on Jan. 1, 2021. “I did the former, I have done the latter peacefully but they have morphed into pure evil even blatantly rigging an election and paying off the political caste. We must smite them now and drive them down."
The same day, according to messages entered into evidence, Caldwell’s associate, Adrian Grimes, wrote to him, “Trump will win on the 6th if not im personally gonna start the civil war myself so f***ing tired of these libtards.”
Caldwell responded, “I am starting it the night of the 6th if necessary.
To a group discussion about whether former Vice President Mike Pence would go along with a reported plan to send electoral votes back to states, on Jan. 1, 2021, Caldwell wrote, “If he hopes to live till Friday he better stand tall.”
The FBI initially, and incorrectly, believed Caldwell entered the building due to a photograph of him inside a construction tunnel — a fact Fischer hammered Special Agent Michael Palian, one of the lead investigators on the case, about while he was on the witness stand. Fischer has suggested investigators have been overly credulous of aggressive language from Caldwell, including a statement claiming he'd urged the crowd to "storm the place and hang the traitors." In previous court filings, Fischer also downplayed a description of the breach of the Lower West Terrace Caldwell sent to Ohio militia member Donovan Crowl.
“This is the view from the west balcony after we broke through all of the construction and made it inside,” Caldwell wrote. “If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians. They ran off and were spirited away through their tunnels like the rats they are.”
During a bond hearing in March 2021, Fischer described both Caldwell's "hang the traitors" comment and his message to Crowl about killing politicians as private, off-color jokes and "locker room talk and male bravado."
Since the trial began last week, Fischer has endeavored to draw a line in jurors' minds between the ample evidence of planning and numerous mentions of violence ahead of the Oath Keepers' trip to D.C. on Jan. 6 and a specific plan to attack Congress.
"Isn't it true you haven't come across a single, solitary witness who has claimed Thomas Caldwell had a plan to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6?" Caldwell asked Palian last week.
"We have not come across a person that has told us that, correct," Palian said.
Caldwell is charged with seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, conspiracy to prevent Congress from performing its duties and tampering with documents or proceedings. The trial for Caldwell and four co-defendants, including Rhodes, was scheduled to resume Monday and was expected to last six-to-seven weeks.
WUSA9 reporter Jordan Fischer will be in court throughout the trial providing daily coverage. Follow him on Twitter at @JordanOnRecord and subscribe to our weekly newsletter “Capitol Breach” for all the latest Jan. 6 coverage.