Of those interviewed, 34 agreed that Hale-Cusanelli had “extreme or radical views regarding the Jewish people, minorities and women”. A fellow contractor said he discussed his dislike for Jews every day. A supervisor told investigators that she had to warn him for sporting a “Hitler” mustache (images taken from Hale-Cusanelli’s phone by prosecutors).
“A Navy non-commissioned officer stated that the Defendant constantly talked about the Jewish people and remembered the Defendant saying ‘Hitler should have finished the job’,” according to the summary of the prosecutors’ report.
The results of the newly released interview are the latest evidence that the January 6 uprising, when a crowd of thousands of Donald Trump supporters invaded the Capitol to interrupt certification of the 2020 election results, included a contingent of supremacists whites – in addition to extremist militias and paramilitary groups that used crowd coverage to violate the Capitol.
The Hale-Cusanelli case received attention because of its role in army reserves and active employment in a military facility. The new evidence underscores a challenge that policymakers have begun to face in Capitol and military leadership: how to combat extremist ideologies among the military. Many ex-military and police officers were among the protesters.
Prosecutors released the results of the NCIS investigation in part to refute a letter of support from one of Hale-Cusanelli’s supervisors at NWS Earle, sergeant. John Getz, presented by defense lawyers to support the release of Hale-Cusanelli on bail. In a two-page letter, Getz told the court that he was “shocked by the way [Hale-Cusanelli] he was slandered in the press about him being a ‘white supremacist’. “
“I never met him like that. I know our coworkers would agree, ”wrote Getz, adding,“ I never saw Mr. Hale treat any of his African American colleagues differently than anyone else, nor did I hear any unpleasant jokes or language come out of his mouth. “
But prosecutors say Getz’s letter contradicts his own statements to NCIS investigators about Hale-Cusanelli’s conduct. Getz told NCIS that Hale-Cusanelli “would make racial jokes and not be silent about it.” He said he knew that Hale-Cusanelli was a Nazi sympathizer and Holocaust denier, but that “nothing about Hale-Cusanelli’s statements seemed dangerous to him.”
Getz also recalled that Hale-Cusanelli “walked up to new people and asked, ‘You are not a Jew, are you?’”
“He described Hale-Cussnelli’s behavior as ‘play, but not’,” according to the report’s summary.
As a result of the contradictions – and the fact that the letter of support had neither a date nor a signature – NCIS investigators visited Getz on March 9, prosecutors revealed. In an interview, he acknowledged writing the letter and that it contradicted his statements to NCIS in January.
“Sergeant Getz said he did not feel obliged to include his observations on the defendant’s conduct, as reported to NCIS, in his letter to the Court,” prosecutors said. “Sergeant Getz explained that he wanted to ‘speak positively’ about the Defendant to the bail hearing, and because he was not personally offended by the Defendant’s conduct.”
Hale-Cusanelli’s lawyer Jonathan Zucker, defending his release before the trial earlier this month, emphasized that Hale-Cusanelli was not accused of committing any violence on January 6, did not join anti-government groups and is accused of little else than entering the building and verbally harassing a Capitol police officer who sprayed pepper spray on the crowd.
Zucker argued that the characterization of the Hale-Cusaneli government as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer was inaccurate.
“In fact, during an interview by Mr. Hale-Cusanelli by FBI agents, he denied when he stated that, ‘he is not a Nazi …’ and ‘he is not a white nationalist or a white supremacist,'” Zucker he said, citing the summary of Hale-Cusanelli’s FBI interview in February. “There is no evidence that Mr. Hale-Cusanelli is a member of any white supremacist organization.”
He also called the Hale-Cusanelli YouTube channel “controversial”, but mostly about local New Jersey politics. And he said the government’s discovery of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and “The Turner Diaries” at Hale-Cusanelli’s home “does not mention that there were hundreds of other books in the Hale-Cusanelli collection.”
Prosecutors refuted these claims, revealing that Hale-Cusanelli’s phone was filled with anti-Semitic and racist content. And they claim that their views were the impetus behind a “fantasy of participating in another Civil War”. His dismissal from the Army and his exclusion from work at the NWS Earle as a result of his alleged actions would give him more time to pursue these goals if he were released until trial, prosecutors say.
“If nothing else,” wrote the United States assistant attorney, James Nelson, “the events of January 6, 2021 exposed the size and determination of peripheral right-wing groups in the United States and their willingness to place themselves and to others in danger to continue their political ideology. “