{"id":43744,"date":"2021-05-22T10:31:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T17:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=43744"},"modified":"2021-05-22T10:31:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T17:31:23","slug":"everyday-erinyes-267","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/22\/everyday-erinyes-267\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Erinyes #267"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto<\/span><\/strong>, Megaera<\/strong><\/span>, and Tisiphone<\/span><\/strong>. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”<\/p>\n

Now this is what scares me more than anything and everything else in the United States today. This is the guy who was turned in to the FBI by his 16-year-old son (who has now moved out of the household and is trying to get emancipated, even though Dad is locked up.) And this is about the letter he wrote and sent to ProPublica<\/strong>.\u00a0 That fact alone blows my mind.\u00a0 See for yourself
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In Exclusive Jailhouse Letter, Capitol Riot Defendant Explains Motives, Remains Boastful<\/h1>\n

by Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien<\/p>\n

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter<\/a> to receive stories like this one in your inbox<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Series:
\nThe Insurrection<\/h3>\n

The Effort to Overturn the Election<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a letter sent from behind bars, a key defendant in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol said he and fellow inmates have bonded in jail, and boasted that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted.<\/p>\n

The letter is signed \u201cthe 1\/6ers\u201d and expresses no remorse for the assault on the Capitol, in which five people died. While no names appeared on it, ProPublica was able to determine, through interviews with his family and a review of his correspondence from jail, that it was penned by Guy Reffitt, a member of the Three Percenter right-wing militant group accused of participating in the riot. The letter said the inmates arrested for their role in the attack regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance inside the Washington, D.C. jail and sing the national anthem \u201call in unison, loud and proud most everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJanuary 6th was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government,\u201d said the letter, written by hand on yellow lined paper. \u201cIf overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter sent to ProPublica is believed to be one of the first public statements from a Jan. 6 rioter currently in detention. ProPublica also obtained text messages with Reffitt\u2019s family and was able to ask a few questions of him via text from the D.C. Jail, with his wife, Nicole Reffitt, acting as a relay. Guy Reffitt declined to participate in a fuller interview on the advice of his lawyer, his wife said.<\/p>\n

Reffitt faces a variety of charges, including obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. He is awaiting trial and has pleaded not guilty. In text messages he sent last month to his wife, Reffitt said he was resigning from the Texas Three Percenters.<\/p>\n

Last week, Reffitt told ProPublica via his wife that more than 30 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack had discussed the letter while in custody. He said that the \u201c1\/6ers\u201d are \u201cnot organized\u201d and that there are \u201cno leaders,\u201d just \u201cpeople chatting about things\u201d because they are \u201cstuck here together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reffitt said that the suspects communicate with one another with what are known as \u201ckites,\u201d jailhouse slang for messages passed from cell to cell. They are also able to socialize during the two hours a day they\u2019re let out of their cells. The Department of Justice declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Those detained in connection with the Capitol siege have been treated by D.C. officials as \u201cmaximum security\u201d prisoners and kept in restrictive housing, according to media reports. Three defendants that Nicole Reffitt said she understood to be parties to the letter denied any knowledge of it when contacted by ProPublica. One of them said he became friends with Guy Reffitt inside the D.C. Jail, but had been moved to another unit by the time the letter was penned.<\/p>\n

Nicole Reffitt said she helped her husband write the letter and solicit support through phone calls and a jailhouse messaging app inmates are allowed to use periodically to communicate with the outside world. The D.C. Jail has held dozens of defendants in connection with the riot, on charges ranging from obstructing an official proceeding to assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon.<\/p>\n

The letter counters the notion that there was a \u201cplan\u201d or \u201cconspiracy\u201d to take down Congress on Jan. 6, blaming much of the violence on \u201cisolated overly emotional individuals.\u201d It suggests that their actions were meant to put the country on notice: \u201cThe people clearly are not happy,\u201d Guy Reffitt said in response to questions sent through his wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk the Capitol Police for [their] opinion of how it could have been,\u201d the letter says. \u201cThey are grateful it wasn\u2019t a real insurrection complete with mind, body and soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reffitt had a moment of notoriety in late January when it became public that his son had contacted the FBI to report him roughly two weeks before the riot. In text messages reviewed by ProPublica, Reffitt asked his wife for a list of presidents so that the group could use it to create cell names. Reffitt now resides in a cell he has dubbed \u201cthe Garfield suite,\u201d named after the 20th U.S. president, James A. Garfield.<\/p>\n

ProPublica reporters visited Reffitt\u2019s family in Wylie, Texas, a Dallas suburb, and interviewed Nicole Reffitt and their two daughters. The reporters also met with the Reffitts\u2019 son, Jackson Reffitt, who had reported concerns about his father\u2019s activities to the FBI. Jackson Reffitt said the bureau did not follow up until the Capitol was under siege. The FBI did not immediately respond to questions from ProPublica.<\/p>\n

The family shared group text message chats from the past year and some of their correspondence with Guy Reffitt during his more than three months in jail.<\/p>\n

The material sheds light on the radicalization of Reffitt, whom federal prosecutors characterized in a court filing as a \u201cserious danger … not only to his family and Congress, but to the entire system of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reffitt, 48, worked most of his adult life on oil rigs, an occupation that took him and sometimes his family around the world, including three years in Malaysia. But when the coronavirus hit in 2020, work dried up and he intensified his political activity, focusing on the Black Lives Matter movement, which he viewed as destructive.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ctyranny,\u201d according to his text messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watch the people of other countries rise up against authoritarianism and think, how sad they must be to want freedom and liberty so much,\u201d the letter said. \u201cHere, the more you try to divide, bend or even break America. The more The Republic of The People will stand indivisible and resolute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reffitt\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll find out that I had every constitutional right to carry a weapon and take over the Congress, as we tried to do,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

In another excerpt in court files, Guy Reffitt was blunt: \u201cI did bring a weapon on property that we own. Federal grounds or not. The law is written, but it doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s right law. The people that were around me were all carrying too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reffitt\u2019s wife and daughters said his statements were more benign than they sound \u2014 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 \u201cQueenie\u201d because of his flair for the dramatic. Prosecutors have not accused him of entering the Capitol building or hurting anyone.<\/p>\n

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, \u201cSorry, darling. You better get a bigger damn gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reffitt went on to describe how the group might be able to disable a social media company\u2019s servers by using a sniper rifle to disable the generators at a nearby Texas facility. According to court records, he said attacking the servers would \u201cmake them feel it back\u201d in Washington, D.C. He added: \u201cThen they won\u2019t know we\u2019re coming next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In court filings, his lawyer said that prosecutors have \u201crelied on bragging\u201d and that none of the government\u2019s video or photographs from the Capitol show Reffitt to be armed. Reffitt has not been charged with a gun crime.<\/p>\n

The letter expressed hope that the events of Jan. 6 wouldn\u2019t need to be repeated: \u201cI hope that was the only day in American history we would without doubt, feel the need to notify our government, they have transgressed much too far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several experts on extremism reviewed the letter for ProPublica and had differing views of its implications.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tend to look at this letter as a person puffing themself up,\u201d said Jason Blazakis, a former senior counterterrorism official at the Department of State.<\/p>\n

Peter Simi, an associate professor at Chapman University in Southern California, found the language in the letter more alarming, especially in how it characterizes the Jan. 6 riot as inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would interpret it as a threat. You can say it\u2019s thinly veiled, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that thinly veiled,\u201d Simi said. \u201cThis is the preamble \u2014 what you saw on the 6th. More is coming … If you thought the 6th was bad, just wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Meet and Greet<\/h3>\n

As Reffitt struggled to find work in the spring of 2020, he spent hours watching Fox News and getting angry over the Black Lives Matter protests, his family said. His teenage children supported the movement; Reffitt viewed it as \u201cbullshit,\u201d according to his texts. One argument with his son ended with Reffitt throwing a coffee mug across the room. About a week later, Jackson Reffitt went to march in a BLM rally in Wylie. His father went armed, the family said, standing guard outside the suburb\u2019s Olde City Park.<\/p>\n

Around that time, Guy Reffitt was introduced to the Three Percenters, a decentralized anti-government movement. The group, which takes its name from the myth that only three percent of the population fought the British in the American Revolution, is credited with popularizing the militia movement by framing it in more palatable, patriotic terms.<\/p>\n

Nicole Reffitt recalled a \u201cmeet and greet\u201d in June, with about 20 members coming to the Reffitt home for a barbecue.<\/p>\n

After some awkward small talk, the conversation turned to \u201cwhat everyone could do,\u201d she said. Who had military experience? Who had a license to carry? Who knew how to stop a bleed? Someone took notes to be sent up the chain of command.<\/p>\n

Guy Reffitt was enthralled. Afterwards, he began doing what he called \u201cintel,” doing background checks on new recruits. His wife was relieved he seemed to have a sense of purpose.<\/p>\n

In August, Reffitt drove to a BLM demonstration in Mississippi, hoping to surveil a particular activist. The family said that Reffitt intended to place a GPS tracking device on the man\u2019s car. He abandoned the plan when he wasn\u2019t sure he had the right vehicle.<\/p>\n

Nicole Reffitt said she was alarmed when she found multiple license plates in the bed of her husband\u2019s pickup truck. She said her husband told her he used them to make sure he wasn\u2019t being tracked. \u201cI was like, \u2018What the fuck? What are we doing?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cHe told me to go to work and keep my business to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

After then-President Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, Guy Reffitt began to sequester himself in the front room of his suburban brick home, glued to Newsmax as it reported theories of how the vote was rigged.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 19, Reffitt found a new obsession, his family said, when Trump tweeted: \u201cBig protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!\u201d<\/p>\n

From then on, Reffitt\u2019s texts bounced between plans for shopping and cooking prime rib for Christmas and talk of going to D.C. to \u201cshock the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the government that is going to be destroyed in this fight,\u201d Reffitt texted his family on Dec. 21. \u201cCongress has made fatal mistakes this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Feeling \u201cparanoid\u201d about his father, Jackson Reffitt sent in a tip via the FBI website. He said he wrote that his father was a militia member who made threatening statements about public officials and kept talking about doing \u201csomething big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full Battle Rattle<\/h3>\n

After Christmas, Guy Reffitt firmed up plans to travel to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally. His family said he planned to bring weapons, which was unsurprising; they said he went most everywhere armed. Nicole Reffitt told ProPublica her husband promised to disassemble the weapons to comply with Washington, D.C., laws. His defense attorney has argued that there is no evidence that he \u201ccarried a loaded firearm.\u201d<\/p>\n

But according to court records, on Dec. 28, Guy messaged an unnamed individual. \u201cI don\u2019t think unarmed will be the case this time,\u201d he said. \u201cI will be in full battle rattle. If that\u2019s a law I break, so be it, but I won\u2019t do it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he left to drive to Washington, he told his family, \u201cIf everything works out, I\u2019ll see you again,\u201d in what Nicole said was a typically melodramatic goodbye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love ALL of you with ALL of my heart and soul,\u201d he texted on the morning of Jan. 6. \u201cThis is for our country and for ALL OF YOU and your kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson Reffitt came home to find his mother and sister transfixed by the television as protestors pushed past police lines. \u201cWhat the hell?\u201d he recalled asking. \u201cIs dad there?\u201d The screen showed police in the Senate chambers, guns drawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour father is there,\u201d his mother responded.<\/p>\n

Finally acting on Jackson Reffitt\u2019s earlier tip, an FBI agent called him to set up a meeting.<\/p>\n

Two days later, Guy Reffitt came home, eager to boast. His son decided to record him. Jackson Reffitt met with the FBI agent the following week.<\/p>\n

In the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 16, a squad of more than a dozen officers rolled up to the Reffitt home, armed for a SWAT raid, according to his family and footage from their neighbor\u2019s security camera. A mobile battering ram idled in front of their house as the officers tossed flash-bang grenades. The family clambered out, some still in their underwear.<\/p>\n

Guy Reffitt went without resistance, assuring the kids that the federal agents were only doing their jobs. He was expecting to be arrested by then, his family said, and even laughed with an officer who accompanied him to the bathroom after he\u2019d been handcuffed.<\/p>\n

As he was being carted off in the back of a police vehicle, he yelled out the window: \u201cI didn\u2019t ask for this!\u201d<\/p>\n

He has been behind bars since.<\/p>\n

On April 22, Reffitt messaged his wife a note of encouragement.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are superstars to more than half the country,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThere\u2019s no going back now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n