Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a US Army reservist and Navy security contractor who was arrested for allegedly violating the Capitol during the January 6 riot, was a well-known white supremacist, federal prosecutors said on Friday, as reported by first time by Politico.
Why does it matter: “Not only is the White Supremacist and Nazi Sympathetic ideology obvious from the evidence, this same ideology drives the defendant’s enthusiasm for another Civil War,” prosecutors said.
- Hale-Cusanelli reportedly discussed his hatred of Jews, minorities and women while working as a security contractor at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Context: A new lawsuit from federal prosecutors on Friday included the results of an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service into Hale-Cusanelli.
- The investigation included interviews with 44 of Hale-Cusanelli’s colleagues, 34 of whom agreed that he had “extremist or radical views regarding the Jewish people, minorities and women”.
What they are saying: One of Hale-Cusanelli’s colleagues said the defendant “shaved his facial hair on a ‘Hitler’s mustache'”, and prosecutors took pictures of the mustache on Hale-Cusanelli’s phone.
- A Navy noncommissioned officer told investigators who remembered Hale-Cusanelli saying, “Hitler should have finished the job.”
The big picture: The Hale-Cusanelli case received attention from the military because of his status as a reservist and his employment in a military facility and highlights the challenges the Department of Defense faces in trying to combat extremist ideologies in the ranks of the armed forces.
- The Pentagon reported this month that domestic extremist groups tried to recruit active and ex-military members into its ranks.
- Several ex-military and police officers participated in the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, which the FBI classified as domestic terrorism.
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last month ordered commanding and supervisory officers to make a one-day “refusal” to discuss extremism within the armed forces.