Days before the riot, prosecutors say, Caldwell contacted a contact person associated with another group, the Three Percenters, an extremist gun rights militia that takes its name from the supposed three percent of the U.S. colonial population who opposed the British army fought. In a text message, Mr. Caldwell to find a boat that could “handle a Potomac crossing” and ship a “Quick Response Team” with “heavy weapons” to militia members already in the Capitol.
Mr. Caldwell asked a federal judge to release him this week. He said he was a wounded Navy veteran with more than 30 years of experience in top secret cases. He also noted that while at the Capitol on January 6, he was not part of the “pile” of Oath Keepers in tactical military gear that physically breached the building.
In the papers filed Thursday, prosecutors objected that it hardly mattered, as Mr. Caldwell was “a key figure in triggering the violence that overwhelmed the Capitol.” They noted that in his text messages he described the killing and maiming of people who held views against his, and that he referred to political opponents as “socialists,” “savages,” “maggots,” and “cockroaches.”
Last month, when federal agents left Mr. When they searched Caldwell in Virginia, they discovered a document titled “Death List” that contained the name of an unidentified election official from another state, prosecutors said. Officers also found a gun that was “purposely built to look like a cell phone,” prosecutors say.
During a search of Ms. Watkins’s home, according to the court, agents discovered numerous firearms, a paintball gun, billiard choices reduced to “baton size,” plastic zippers and a recipe for making “a destructive device.”
Prosecutors say Ms. Watkins had this arsenal because she believed that the prospect of Joseph R. Biden Jr. president was “an existential threat”.
“Biden may still be our president,” she wrote in a text on Nov. 17. ‘If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. Our republic would be over. Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights. “