Days before the riot, prosecutors say, Caldwell made contact with an associate associated with another group, the Three Percenters, an extremist arms rights militia named after the alleged 3% of the US colonial population who fought against the British Army . In a text message, Mr. Caldwell suggested finding a boat that “could handle a Potomac crossing” and could take a “Rapid Response Team” with “heavy weapons” to militia members already on Capitol Hill.
Caldwell asked a federal judge to release him from custody this week, saying he was an injured Navy veteran with more than 30 years of experience in top-secret affairs. He also noted that while on Capitol Hill on January 6, he was not part of the Oath Keepers “pile” of tactical military equipment that physically violated the building.
In the papers filed on Thursday, prosecutors contested that this would hardly matter, since Caldwell was “a key figure who set in motion the violence that oppressed the Capitol”. They noted that in his text messages he described killing and maiming people who held opinions contrary to his own and referred to political opponents as “socialists”, “savages”, “worms” and “cockroaches”.
When federal agents searched Caldwell’s home in Virginia last month, they discovered a document entitled “List of Deaths” that contained the name of an unidentified electoral official from another state, prosecutors said. The agents also found a pistol that was “intentionally built to look like a cell phone,” prosecutors say.
In a search of Mrs. Watkins’ home, court documents say, agents discovered several firearms, a paintball gun, snooker cues cut to “stick size”, plastic clasps and a recipe for making “a device. destructive”
Prosecutors say Watkins may have had this arsenal because he believed that the prospect of Joseph R. Biden Jr. becoming president was “an existential threat”.
“Biden may still be our president,” she wrote in a text message on 17 November. “If he goes, our way of life as we know him is over. Our republic would be over. So it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights. “