Good one. Caldwell leaving the military just one year before pension time
"Much of the logistical planning seems to have been done by Caldwell, a 65-year-old retired Navy Reserve member who served from 1976 to 1995 as an intelligence officer, according to the service. He retired as a lieutenant commander, but records do not give any indication as to why he left just one year shy of the typical 20-year mark that would have granted him a pension.
Little else is known about Caldwell's service since older service records are transferred to the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and are not readily accessible by the service branches or the public. His lawyer, in arguing for his release from pretrial detention, told the court that Caldwell went on to work as a "section chief" for the FBI from 2009 to 2010 and also formed a consulting firm that performed "often classified" work for several government agencies, although these claims could not be verified."
"MORE, Military News: Inside the Oath Keepers' Plan for an Armed Takeover of the US Capitol"
By FindLaw Staff | Reviewed by Maddy Teka, Esq. | Last updated January 08, 2021
Suppose that over the course of a few months, a small band of armed militants has coordinated strategies to distribute firearms and take over the nation's capital by force through a website on the clandestine "deep web." All indications show that the group is dead serious in its intentions, but they're thwarted by an FBI investigation that leads to arrests. While sharing information and discussing ideas -- even distasteful ones -- is generally protected as free speech, the FBI believes this crosses the line. The alleged ringleaders of the plot are charged with "seditious conspiracy" (simply referred to as "sedition"), a federal crime related to treason and other anti-government offenses.
Sedition is a serious felony punishable by fines and up to 20 years in prison and it refers to the act of inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority with the goal of destroying or overthrowing it. The following provides an overview of this particular crime against the government, with historical references.
Seditious Conspiracy and Federal Law: The Basics
The federal law against seditious conspiracy can be found in Title 18 of the U.S. Code (which includes treason, rebellion, and similar offenses), specifically 18 U.S.C. § 2384 .. https://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/115/2384 . According to the statutory definition of sedition, it is a crime for two or more people within the jurisdiction of the United States:
* To conspire to overthrow or destroy by force the government of the United States or to level war against them;
* To oppose by force the authority of the United States government; to prevent, hinder, or delay by force the execution of any law of the United States; or
* To take, seize, or possess by force any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.
Free Speech, Sedition, and Treason
In order to get a conviction for seditious conspiracy, the government must prove that the defendant in fact conspired to use force. Simply advocating for the use of force is not the same thing and in most cases is protected as free speech under the First Amendment. For example, two or more people who give public speeches suggesting the need for a total revolution "by any means necessary" have not necessarily conspired .. https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/conspiracy.html .. to overthrow the government. Rather, they're just sharing their opinions, however unsavory. But actively planning such an action (distributing guns, working out the logistics of an attack, actively opposing lawful authority, etc.) could be considered a seditious conspiracy.
Ultimately, the goal is to prevent threats against the United States while protecting individuals' First Amendment rights, which isn't always such a clear distinction.
Sedition differs from treason (defined in Article III of the U.S. Constitution .. https://constitution.findlaw.com/article3.html ) in a fundamental way. While seditious conspiracy is generally defined as conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state, treason .. https://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/treason.html .. is the more serious offense of actively levying war against the United States or giving aid to its enemies. Another way of looking at it is that seditious conspiracy often occurs before an act of treason.
Seditious Conspiracy: Historical Examples
Many of the more high-profile seditious conspiracy cases won by the U.S. government involve Puerto Rican nationalists plotting to overthrow the U.S. and assert their independence. The first was Pedro Albizu Campos .. http://www.jibaros.com/albizu.htm , who (along with nine accomplices) was convicted of sedition in 1937 and jailed for 10 years for attempting to overthrow the government. He and others had been active members of the Nationalist Party, which (according to the U.S. prosecutors) was aimed at independence through force. Other, similar cases involving Puerto Rican nationalists followed.
First Jan. 6 defendant pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy in Capitol attack
"MORE, Military News: Inside the Oath Keepers' Plan for an Armed Takeover of the US Capitol [...] About an hour after the first Oath Keepers made it into the Capitol, a second stack that included three militia members who were later indicted, moved into the building through the same set of doors. This second group was led by Joshua James, an Army veteran who served as an infantryman from 2006 to 2008 and deployed to Iraq for four months in 2007, according to information provided by the service. According to reporting from Time, James earned a Purple Heart before being medically discharged after sustaining injuries in a bomb blast in Iraq. https://time.com/6078530/army-veteran-capitol-siege/ https://www.military.com/history/military-heroes/purple-heart"
Joshua James admits to helping lead a group of Oath Keepers that is accused of organizing rioters to disrupt Congress
By Tom Jackman and Rachel Weiner Today at 6:36 p.m. EST
A member of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group has become the first to admit to engaging in seditious conspiracy to keep President Biden from taking office on Jan. 6, 2021.
Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Ala., pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington on Wednesday to helping lead a group that prosecutors say sent two tactically equipped teams into the Capitol and organized a cache of weapons in a hotel just outside the city. He also pleaded to one count of obstructing an official proceeding, and he may face the stiffest sentence of any Jan. 6 defendant so far, according to preliminary sentencing guidelines.
As part of his plea, James agreed to cooperate with federal investigators, including testifying in front of a grand jury.
James, an Army veteran who was injured fighting in Iraq, was indicted on the sedition charge in January along with 10 others, including Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes. James faced multiple felony counts of obstructing the formal count of the electoral college, as well as assaulting a D.C. police officer during his time inside the Capitol. He was also accused of tampering with documents to destroy his communications with other Oath Keepers. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss the charges other than the seditious conspiracy and obstruction counts. Both charges carry a maximum 20-year prison term. No defendant has yet been sentenced to a maximum term.
James appeared in court virtually from Alabama; he was released on GPS monitoring last April over government objections. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said the sentencing guidelines for both the sedition and the obstruction charge were calculated to a range of 87 to 108 months in prison. The range is advisory, and both sides can ask for the judge to go above or below the range at sentencing. The longest sentence any Jan. 6 defendant has received so far is 63 months for Robert S. Palmer, who admitted to hurling a fire extinguisher, a plank and a long pole at officers.
Five other Oath Keepers, apart from the 11 charged with seditious conspiracy, have already pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government. But James is the first to plead to sedition, a rarely used and politically significant crime of conspiring against the U.S. government.
James did not make any statements in court other than to answer the judge’s questions. No sentencing date was set, which is often done to enable defendants to provide their cooperation first. The plea marks the first successful use of a sedition charge by federal prosecutors in decades.
Federal law defines seditious conspiracy as two or more people who “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States,” or act “by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” ) In 2012, a judge dismissed seditious conspiracy charges against members of a far-right militia group in Michigan, saying it was unclear they made concrete plans to attack the government. Rhodes has said that the Oath Keepers were in Washington on Jan. 6 to protect conservative figures, such as then-President Donald Trump’s confidante Roger Stone, from left-wing attackers. According to court records, James and a fellow Oath Keeper provided security for Stone at Trump’s rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.
But their preparation for an assault on the Capitol began two days after the Nov. 3, 2020, election, according to federal prosecutors, when Rhodes allegedly told his followers “to refuse to accept the election result and stated: ‘We aren’t getting through this without a civil war.’”
The indictment details two months of communications between Rhodes and other Oath Keeper members, including James, in which “Rhodes outlined a plan to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power, including preparations for the use of force.” Rhodes has pleaded not guilty and said that members who entered the Capitol did so without his authorization. In the plea agreement, James agreed that Rhodes “instructed [him] and others to be prepared and called upon to … use lethal force if necessary” to keep Trump in office, according to Mehta.
) Prosecutors said James was part of an Oath Keepers leadership group that rounded up participants for the planned insurrection. “SE Region is creating a NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION FOR DC JAN 6TH,” James posted to the “leadership intel chat” on Dec. 21, 2020. Ten days later, James wrote, “we have a....load of QRF [quick response force] on standby with an arsenal.”
At about 2:30 p.m. on Jan, 6, 2021, prosecutors say, James and other Oath Keepers, outfitted in tactical vests, hard-knuckle gloves, goggles and other battle apparel, learned the Capitol had been breached and raced over in golf carts to join the fray.
While one “stack” of Oath Keepers, including four of James’s co-defendants, marched up the Capitol steps and entered, another co-defendant messaged that the “quick reaction force” was “standing by at hotel. Just say the word,” according to the indictment. The first group went in, encountered police, searched for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and then left, the indictment states.
James and at least two other Oath Keepers then entered the Capitol through the east side and joined a mob jostling with police, and a video shot by one of his co-defendants allegedly shows James grabbing the vest of one officer and trying to drag him into the mob. Other officers then snatched the officer away from James, the indictment states.
James admitted Wednesday that he used force against an officer inside the Capitol.
James was sprayed with chemicals and pushed out of the building by officers, prosecutors said. He joined Rhodes and others for a celebration dinner in Vienna, Va., later that night, the indictment states. James met with Rhodes in both Alabama and Texas in the weeks after the riot to plan further actions, prosecutors allege.
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