WASHINGTON (CN) — A day after jurors heard his wife play down their participation in the U.S. Capitol riot as the enthusiastic protest of a couple of senior citizens, a Virginia man charged with seditious conspiracy testified Tuesday in his own defense.
Thomas Caldwell, 68, is not accused of physically breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Rather, prosecutors say he was in charge of coordinating a team of armed members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia while a ceremony was underway in Congress to certify the results of the 2020 election.
Prosecutors say this “quick reaction force” was on stand-by at a hotel in Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the seat of the U.S. government, pending further instructions from the Oath Keepers' eyepatch-wearing founder, Stewart Rhodes, as part of a plot to stop the transfer of presidential power.
To prove seditious conspiracy, however, prosecutors must demonstrate that Rhodes, Caldwell and the three others on trial with them had an actual agreement to "overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force" the U.S. government. Evidence from the defendants' encrypted chats, their purchase of weapons and their travel across the country ahead of Jan. 6 go to the heart of the case.
Caldwell meanwhile denies that he can even be considered a member of the Oath Keepers, insisting that he only learned about the organization on Nov. 8 when he met Rhodes at a Stop the Steal rally — one of several that broke out in protest of election results showing that President Donald Trump would not get a second term. According to Caldwell's testimony, Rhodes described the group he founded in 2009 as one made up of veterans and current and former law enforcement members who “provide security services to conservative speakers at various events around the country.”
After hearing from Rhodes that the Oath Keepers needed accommodations before another rally, the Million MAGA March on Nov. 14, Caldwell said he offered up his farm in Berryville, Virginia.
The government has portrayed this campout as training in the plot to attack the U.S. Capitol. Caldwell portrayed it innocently on the stand, denying that anything nefarious occurred. Caldwell said the Oath Keepers were nice people in need of a place to stay.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have focused on messages Caldwell sent to Rhodes regarding a reconnaissance trip that he took to Washington prior to the Million MAGA March. Prosecutors say the photos Caldwell took of government buildings in Washington are proof that he was scoping out areas in furtherance of an attack operation targeting the Capitol to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.
But Caldwell, who worked briefly for the FBI and held top security clearance in the Navy for 20 years, downplayed the messages on the witness stand Tuesday. Noting that he had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for Jan. 9, 2021, in the Washington area, Caldwell he often uses the military term "recce" to describe checking out an area before an event.
Caldwell claims he generously passed along the findings of his medical recce to Rhodes because he knew several Oath Keepers were planning to attend the upcoming Million MAGA March, and he wanted to share his thoughts about the “weird vibe” in the district, which he said was very lively prior to the pandemic.
In the nearly two years since the riot occurred, Trump supporters have often claimed in contravention of the evidence that the violence of Jan. 6 could be traced to opponents of the former president in the decentralized Antifascist movement.
Caldwell offered a variation of this theme in his testimony, saying the ops plan he sent to the leader of the North Carolina Oath Keepers was something he had been working on since 2016.
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