Biden-Harris DOJ moves to imprison enfeebled, nonviolent Jan. 6 defendant for 4 years

When federal agents raided the rural Virginia farm of Thomas Caldwell on Jan. 19, 2021, they were sure he was a kingpin of the Oath Keepers and the architect of a heinous attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

They treated him as such.

The permanently disabled Navy veteran said he was thrown onto the hood of an FBI sedan after a SWAT team lit him and his wife, Sharon, up with red lasers in the freezing air on the porch of their farmhouse in Berryville, Virginia.

“I had asked them five separate times, ‘What am I being charged with? What am I being charged with?’ They finally said, ‘Trespassing.’ I said, ‘Are you out of your mind? You come here and point guns in my wife’s face for trespassing? Where am I supposed to have trespassed?’ They said, ‘Well, you went into the Capitol.’”

Caldwell never entered the Capitol, but he spent nearly two months in isolation after being kicked, beaten, and mocked upon his initial intake at a Virginia jail. He said guards mocked his Christian faith as they kicked him in the groin.

“The guy that was the kicker said to me, he said, ‘Where’s your Sky Daddy? Where’s your Sky Daddy? Gonna come down here and help you?’ He was referring, of course, to Jesus Christ. I never want to forget it,” Caldwell said in 2022. “I never want to forget it.”

The Central Virginia Regional Jail conducted an internal investigation after Caldwell’s descriptions were published in the Epoch Times. The sheriff said he could not substantiate Caldwell’s assertions.

Caldwell had spinal fusion surgery on his neck on Oct. 22. He had a total hip replacement in May 2022.

Nearly four years later, the government’s story about Caldwell has dramatically changed. He’s no longer the plot-keeper or the mastermind of a potential armed assault on the Capitol, and prosecutors are no longer seeking to send him to prison for 14 years. Caldwell was scheduled for a Nov. 18 sentencing hearing in Washington, D.C., but that hearing has been delayed until Dec. 20.

Caldwell was found guilty by a jury of a single count: tampering with evidence — that being photos on his own phone that were posted on Facebook and stored on thumb drives in open view at the Caldwell home.

Caldwell was originally found guilty of the dubious 20-year felony “obstruction of an official proceeding” that was chopped down by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark June 28 ruling. The DOJ has since withdrawn the charge that led to that guilty verdict.

Thomas Edward Caldwell arrives for his Jan. 6 trial at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 27, 2022.Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

In a trial that ran from Sept. 27 to Nov. 29, 2022, Caldwell was found not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, seditious conspiracy, and attempting to prevent a member of Congress from discharging duties.

His four co-defendants — including Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III — were sentenced in 2023. Three remain in prison, and one has been released on probation.

The 70-year-old U.S. Navy veteran faces sentencing only for the obstruction of justice/tampering with evidence count. Defense attorney David Fischer is asking U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to sentence Caldwell to time served, meaning the 53 days he spent in pretrial detention at Central Virginia Regional Jail. Caldwell has been in home detention for the 833 days since.

'A lot of the things that they’re saying are horrible and seditious are mocking and jibing and poking fun with friends.'

“Caldwell’s medical ailments, his status as a Zero-Point Offender, his full acquittal on January 6-related conspiracy counts at a time when D.C. juries had not acquitted a single defendant of a single count (65-0), his perfect performance while on pretrial release, and his military service that resulted in a lifetime of debilitating injuries suggest that a sentence of time-served (53 days) is appropriate,” Fischer wrote in a six-page supplemental sentencing memo filed Nov. 4 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

Fischer said Caldwell had spinal fusion surgery on his neck on Oct. 22. He had a total hip replacement in May 2022. He suffered debilitating injuries caused by a mortar round during a classified mission in the Philippines. Fischer has described his client as a “physical wreck.”

“Respectfully, a sentence that includes incarceration would be inappropriate based upon Caldwell’s recent fusion surgery and his status as a 100 percent service-connected disabled veteran,” Fischer wrote.

Caldwell and his wife attended the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol. He did not enter the building, commit violence, or vandalize the property. The pair did walk up stairs to the Lower West Terrace to take selfies and then retreated.

What Caldwell did was to write, talk, and cuss like a sailor about the 2020 presidential election and the Democrat leadership in Congress. He used an encrypted messaging app to fire off colorful missives to some of his veteran buddies.

“A lot of the things that they’re saying are horrible and seditious are mocking and jibing and poking fun with friends—in private conversations—sometimes with one person in a text message, or two people,” Caldwell told the Epoch Times in 2022. “In fact, some of these things are with guys that are 75 miles away in Virginia, who are at their farms, drunk as lords, as they say, watching stuff on TV.”

'Caldwell’s conduct and behavior were more akin to a loud-mouth Walter Mitty.'

Prosecutors presented as credible the statements Caldwell made about using duck skiffs to ferry weapons across the Potomac River as part of a “quick-reaction force” to attack the Capitol. He was cited by prosecutors for suggesting he would use the doorknob of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office as a bathroom wipe.

Caldwell was never a member of the Oath Keepers, although a small number of Oath Keepers camped on his farm property while attending protests in Washington, D.C., in November 2020. Prosecutors continue to tie him to the Oath Keepers.

“Caldwell plotted with other affiliates of the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the certification of the 2020 presidential election, and then he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” prosecutors wrote in their 14-page Nov. 4 supplemental sentencing memorandum. “In his own words, Caldwell ‘heard that Pence f**ked us ... so I grabbed up my American flag and said, ‘Let’s take the damn Capitol’ and, ‘Let’s storm the place and hang the traitors.’”

Jan. 6 defendant Thomas Edward Caldwell detailed the torture he suffered in pretrial detention in a 2022 magazine story. Photo courtesy of Joseph M. Hanneman

In his court filings, Fischer has tried to separate his client’s bluster from the alleged elements of the charged crime.

“Caldwell’s conduct and behavior were more akin to a loud-mouth Walter Mitty than the Rambo-type figure the government has portrayed him since his arrest,” Fischer wrote in May 2023.

Caldwell said more than 100 photos taken on Jan. 6 are still on his phone in FBI possession and that he had the photos backed up on “multiple flash drives and hard drives for posterity.”

“The deleted/unsent items were not exactly akin to throwing a murder weapon in the river and, thus, were neither essential nor ‘especially probative,’” Fischer wrote. “The jury, importantly, did not find the deleted/unsent items particularly probative. The deleted/unsent items were introduced by the government to the jury, which subsequently acquitted Caldwell on all conspiracy counts.”

Prosecutors have described the Caldwell case in dark, sweeping, dramatic tones.

“It is not hyperbole to call what happened on January 6 a crime of historic magnitude,” they wrote in the DOJ sentencing memo. “As judges of this district have repeatedly and clearly stated, January 6 was an unprecedented disruption of the nation’s most sacred function—conducting the peaceful transfer of power."

“‘The events that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th will be in the history books that our children read, our children’s children read and their children’s children read. It’s part of the history of this nation, and it’s a stain on the history of this nation,’” the DOJ memo stated, quoting from U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify some details regarding Caldwell's case.

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