2 Jan. 6 SWAT raids, years of prosecution leave lingering trauma for one Minnesota family

LINDSTRÖM, Minn. — It might just as well have been Christmas, Easter, or Independence Day, judging by the feast put out for Aaron James’ birthday.

Everyone gathered for the family cookout had something to celebrate beyond James’ birthday. The birthday candle on the cherry cheesecake was the numeral 0, seemingly representing the zero years any of them will serve in prison.

James summed up the sentiment of the night as he looked around the room at his family: “Good things are happening in my 39th year.”

'They got us at every point that they could.'

This gathering was a celebration of freedom for four members of the Westbury family who had just seen the federal Jan. 6 criminal cases against them dismissed with prejudice in Washington, D.C.

Just months before, such a notion seemed at best a faint hope, as the massive U.S. Department of Justice Jan. 6 prosecution machine prepared to devour four more defendants.

“I felt just, I don't know. I felt relief,” said Jonah E. Westbury, 30, who had faced four misdemeanor criminal charges for being at the U.S. Capitol. “Obviously that's a pretty standard answer. I felt joy, honestly, knowing that I could really start my life with my wife.”

Two days before the four-year Jan. 6 anniversary, Jonah Westbury and Angela Gazich were married at the Church of the Epiphany in Coon Rapids, Minn. She is a teacher at Epiphany Catholic School. Because of Jonah Westbury’s still-pending charges, he had to get a federal judge’s permission to travel to Antigua for their honeymoon.

Jonah Westbury gets help with his wedding tie from his brother Aaron James. Jonah was married on Jan. 4, 2025.Photo by Eric Vest/Used with permission

The newlyweds lost a day of their honeymoon after airport security gave Westbury the special attention reserved for those on the terror watch list. That caused the couple to miss their flight.

“Due to the additional searches and screening we went through, we missed our connecting flight in Miami,” Jonah Westbury said. “They said my wife’s phone had an explosive substance on it, although it had already had been cleared in Minneapolis. Because of this we missed the only connecting flight and had to stay in Miami.”

'The Westburys are among millions of Americans being swept along in a raging current of falsehoods.'

When the newlyweds reached Antigua, they were again pulled aside and questioned. “I was taken into a room and questioned,” Westbury said. “The lead person there had my info handwritten on a note on her desk. She was told to question me by ‘higher-ups.’”

The routine was repeated on their trip home, as Jonah was subjected to Department of Homeland Security questioning in Charlotte, N.C.

“They got us at every point that they could,” Westbury said. “We missed a night that we paid for and cannot get reimbursement due to this whole process. Unfortunate to say the least."

SWAT raids a chicken coop

To say Jan. 6 turned life upside down for this Minnesota family would be a vast understatement.

The family home 40 miles northeast of Minneapolis was raided twice in 2021 by heavily armed FBI tactical agents.

Government SUVs tore up the lawn, while a booming loudspeaker woke the entire neighborhood. During one of the raids, agents blew in the front door. Drones hovered over groggy family members on the driveway. Another drone was sent to fly through the chicken coop in the back yard.

It has been a long road to freedom for the Westbury family, from the early media smears that accused them of almost being delusional about Jan. 6.

An FBI SWAT team raids the Westbury family home in Lindström, Minnesota, on Oct. 4, 2021. It was the bureau’s second raid on the home.Photos courtesy of Rosemarie Westbury

Most Jan. 6 defendants would likely chuckle at the descriptions used in a January 2022 feature story on the Westbury case in the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune newspaper. It shows the chasm between the left and right when it comes to that infamous January Wednesday.

“The Westburys are among millions of Americans being swept along in a raging current of falsehoods: The election was stolen. COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous. Climate change is hype,” the front-page article read. The family story is unfolding in a “polarized interpretation of reality,” the story said.

If the Westburys and Aaron James were crazed, delusional insurrectionists, it wasn’t apparent at this birthday gathering.

An FBI SWAT team flew a drone through this chicken coop at the Westbury family home in Lindström, Minn., in 2021.Photo by Chris Duzynski for Blaze News

“He was 39 as of 4:13 this morning,” said Rosemarie C. Westbury, 65, Aaron’s mother.

“What a birthday celebration you get today,” Jonah Westbury said. “Look at these birthday burgers. Isn’t that nice?”

Family friend Vashawn Pope cooked cheese-stuffed hamburgers on the grill along with toasted garlic buns. Isaac Westbury tossed the salad, while Aaron’s girlfriend, Nicole Murlowski, showed off a cherry cheesecake rich enough to take intravenously.

No regrets

Conversation among the nine who sat down for dinner centered on their shared Jan. 6 experience. The threat of prison time and memories of the SWAT raids still hung in the air, but the family members caught up in Jan. 6 were not backing down from their belief that they did the right things that day in Washington, D.C.

“Now that it's over, I can kind of look back on it and think, ‘Well, I know that I did the right thing,’” said Isaac Westbury, 23, who was only 19 on Jan. 6. “I know that at that point I wasn't really thinking. I was more just on instinct, and it was probably not the right thing to do at the time, looking back on it.

Left: Aaron James holds his brother Isaac Westbury to prevent him from getting swept into the crowd of bodies piling up. Right: Westbury holds up a shield to block bear spray aimed from the tunnel in the direction of a lifeless Rosanne Boyland.Special to Blaze News, Christopher Chern/Storyful

“But now, four years later, I don’t regret it,” he said. “I don’t regret that I tried to save somebody's life.”

When Isaac Westbury and Aaron James approached the archway of the Lower West Terrace Tunnel around 4:15 p.m., they saw police aggressively pushing protesters from the tunnel. As bystanders fell and became trapped, bodies piled up four and five deep. James, 38, who served as a U.S. Navy fleet marine force corpsman, held on to his brother to keep him from getting swept down the steps.

The men later saw protester Rosanne Boyland, 34, down on the sidewalk, turning blue from hypoxia. The men joined others trying to get police in the front of the tunnel to notice that Boyland was dying right under their noses.

The brothers watched as then-sheriff’s deputy Colton McAbee stepped to the front of the crowd and pointed at Boyland, shouting, “Quit f**king trying to kill that girl! F**king stop!” A few moments later, Metropolitan Police Department Office Lila Morris used a walking stick she took from a rioter and attacked the unconscious Boyland, striking her in the face, head, and ribs, video showed.

'They’re killing people for no reason.'

The brothers picked up police shields from the ground and used them to block the heavy streams of bear spray coming from behind the police line. Both got doused with the potent liquid. One stream was fired high over Isaac Westbury’s shield, raining down on bystanders performing CPR on Boyland.

“It’s just like a barrage of this stuff just coming all over on my face, on my head, on my jacket, down my shirt,” Isaac Westbury said. “Even on Aaron, it’s the same thing. It was just down your face. You couldn’t see. You couldn’t do anything. I could hardly talk. I could hardly breathe.”

Most of the felony criminal charges in the Westbury case were levied against Isaac Westbury and Aaron James. Charges that could have meant decades in prison included civil disorder, obstructing, resisting or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon [police shields], entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, and an act of physical violence within a Capitol building.

Aaron James and Isaac Westbury hold Luke Coffee back from re-approaching the police line. Right: After Coffee collapsed, Westbury and James pulled him down the steps to safety.Metropolitan Police Department

The police shields were deemed weapons by prosecutors, even though they were used in a defensive capacity. In one court document, prosecutors alleged that Isaac and Aaron picked up the shields and “went to the front of the crowd and led the attack on the officers in the tunnel. As other rioters sprayed chemicals at the officers, James and Westbury both grabbed police shields and charged toward the officers in the tunnel.”

The body-camera still photograph used in the court filing actually shows James with a shield in one hand while grabbing at the backpack of Luke R. Coffee, 45, of Dallas, with the other.

“I followed Aaron,” Isaac said. “I mean, I was just with him. I was like, ‘You know what? I know this dude. I know he probably knows what he’s doing in the situation that we were going into and seeing this lady get pummeled to death. I mean, obviously in my head, I’m like, ‘Well f**k these guys. They’re killing people for no reason.”

Another rescue

After Boyland was pulled inside the Capitol, Isaac and Aaron rescued Coffee. He had just used an aluminum medical crutch to push the police line back into the tunnel as bystanders dragged Boyland away from the tunnel mouth so she could receive CPR.

“Aaron James and Isaac Westbury showed true courage and selflessness during one of the most intense scenes on the West Terrace steps,” Coffee told Blaze News. “After I was attacked, they acted quickly — pulling me back from the police line and working to deescalate a situation that was spiraling out of control.”

James said he saw evidence of agitators in the crowd.

“There was a guy who was in his fifties, kind of had that special forces kind of look,” James said. “He was around there with the crowd and he was pushing people around, getting people going. He came up to me and grabbed me. He was like, ‘Listen, keep it up. We’re almost there. Keep it going.’”

James said another man he encountered was armed.

“He was like, ‘I have a weapon on me. I can’t get involved in this.’ And I said, ‘You brought a pistol?’ And he said, ‘No, I have a knife.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I have a pocketknife. Who cares?’

“He lifted up his shirt. He had an actual bayonet, a Marine Corps-issued bayonet, shoved down the front of his pants,” James said. “He said, ‘Here, take it.’ I said, ‘You’re going to get yourself killed.’”

The family members briefly entered the Capitol at 2:40 p.m. after the huge bronze Columbus Doors were opened from the inside. Bob Westbury, who had been doused in the face with pepper spray, was pushed through the narrow doorway with such force that he fell to the ground and had to be rescued by onlookers. They sat him on a nearby bench and rinsed his eyes out. Bob Westbury was charged with four misdemeanors for going into the Capitol.

Rosemarie Westbury, wearing a knit Trump hat, interviews Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes just before 3 p.m. on the Upper Terrace Northwest at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.U.S. Capitol Police

After the criminal cases against the four family members were dismissed earlier in 2025, they demanded that the FBI return their personal property seized during the raid. When their phones were returned, all photos and videos shot on Jan. 6 were missing.

Devices wiped?

“Everything from January 6 is missing,” Jonah Westbury said. “No photos, nothing. Photos from January 7 — but everything else is gone.”

Those missing files have particular significance for Rosemarie Westbury, who was never arrested or charged despite being at the Capitol. Between 2:50 and 3:00 p.m., she did a video interview on the Upper Terrace with Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, founder of the Oath Keepers, who was later charged with seditious conspiracy.

“I said, ‘I have a son who was in the military, and still to this day, it’s very important to him to have that honor,’” she said. “That’s what we discussed, mostly, just what the Oath Keepers stood for.”

Isaac Westbury, 23, recounts using a police shield to protect protester Rosanne Boyland from bear spray fired by police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Chris Duzynski for Blaze News

The interview, which was captured on CCTV, is significant because it shows that Rhodes was having no success getting a cell signal at a time when he was allegedly using his phone to direct an attack on the East Steps of the Capitol. Rhodes said if he were actually doing what prosecutors alleged, he would not have taken time to do a media interview, much less a video conversation with a random person from Minnesota.

The video is exculpatory for Rhodes and the Oath Keepers. It was never presented to the defendants in discovery by federal prosecutors, defense attorneys told Blaze News.

Rosemarie Westbury’s phone might have captured video of a person tampering with U.S. Capitol Police Camera 0927. Video from that camera obtained by Blaze News shows a human hand force the camera to pan to the left and keep Rhodes within camera view. Several defense attorneys said they suspect the FBI or a government informant was following Rhodes on Jan. 6.

'Everything from January 6 is missing.'

Rhodes said he wants to explore avenues to obtain the Jan. 6 content from Rosemarie Westbury’s phone. He said he is not surprised the video was never presented to his defense team during his 2022 trial.

“Frustrating,” Rhodes told Blaze News. “But no, not a surprise.”

Defense attorney Roger Roots, who helped defend the Proud Boys in their Jan. 6 criminal cases, is collecting evidence of the FBI possibly deleting data from defendants' electronic devices and damaging property. He has a dozen examples so far that will likely lead to motions in the cases of Proud Boys who received only sentence commutations from President Donald J. Trump.

Defense attorney Carolyn Stewart, who represents Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs in his criminal appeal, said missing evidence could be evidence of a crime.

Prosecutors sought to jail Jan. 6 defendant Aaron James for having knives in his room. What a probation agent identified as knives were merely cutlery sharpening tools, partially obscured above by a teddy bear. Left: Photo by Chris Duzynski for Blaze News. Right: U.S. Department of Justice.

“I believe this may at least be a whistleblower complaint for FBI fraud and abuse, where digital device seizures under warrants were then used to steal and destroy evidence,” Stewart told Blaze News. “This is also criminal: evidence tampering by the FBI under 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c)(2), since the evidence was subject to defense presentation in a judicial proceeding.”

Family members have plenty of Jan. 6-related horror stories.

On a home visit, senior U.S. probation officer Brian James noticed some vintage knife-sharpeners in Aaron James’ room and thought they were weapons.

'Are you going to yell at me for my cutlery again?'

“I was staying here, and in the room I was staying in, I had these Civil War-era cutlery,” James said. “Those are only sharpening steel. He saw those in my room, walks upstairs, and he’s like, ‘So you’re deciding to not abide by your pretrial release conditions?’ I’m like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He’s like, ‘You have weapons.’ I'm like, ‘I don’t.’ And he said, ‘I saw the knives on there.’”

On July 15, 2022, U.S. supervisory trial attorney Jordan A. Konig asked U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to jail James until trial for allegedly keeping what appeared to be steak knives and a barbecue fork in his room. Those items were noticed during an inspection of the premises. He also called out the sharpening steel.

“James then became confrontational with the officers and acted in a threatening manner toward them,” Konig wrote. “He stated something similar to, ‘Are you going to yell at me for my cutlery again?’”

Judge Contreras rejected the motion to order James into custody. He ordered the Minnesota District of U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services to resume supervision of James and continue to make site visits to the home.

Aaron James, Robert Westbury and Jonah Westbury recount their time at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Chris Duzynski for Blaze News

Rosemarie Westbury said the SWAT raids, carried out six months apart in 2021, upset the entire neighborhood.

“My entire neighborhood was traumatized,” she said. “They had a SWAT truck backed up right next, I mean inches from, my neighbor's house. And he was filming, taking pictures, and filming from his bathroom, and he said, ‘I have children sleeping in this bedroom.’”

For Rosemarie Westbury, the family’s Jan. 6 odyssey started and ends with faith. She described Jan. 6 as a supernatural event that would have been much worse without divine Providence. She said Jan. 6 will continue to be an issue as investigations reveal more of what happened that day.

Rosemarie Westbury looks at the Jan. 6 events through the eyes of faith.Photo by Chris Duzynski for Blaze News

“I always bring it back to the Lord. We have to be diligent in our prayers, yes, to be grateful,” she said. “I mean, we absolutely have to be grateful, but if we understand the enemy, who’s the enemy of our soul, sometimes they envelop people or in-dwell them, and so they use people.

“But who’s our enemy? It’s not that person that's there, but what's behind him.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!