If the mustache, narrowly cut in the style of Adolf Hitler, does not deliver it, then the antisemitic YouTube rants, the testimony of 34 colleagues and the non-Nazi reading material.
U.S. Army defender Timothy Hale-Cusanelli is – according to court documents – an “avowed white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer”.
The 30-year-old was charged in January with five counts of the Capitol riots, and was denied bail this week after a judge expressed concern over Hale-Cusanelli’s commitment to ” civil war ”.
A naval contractor who prosecutors say “has access to a variety of weapons”, Hale-Cusanelli may be looking like an outlier amid the horrors that attacked the Capitol on 6 January. But the darker reality is that Hale-Cusanelli was one of dozens of former or current members who have been investigated or accused in connection with the Capitol riot – at a time when the Pentagon warns of white supremacy and white nationalism within the military situation poses a real threat to U.S. armed forces.
Hale-Cusanelli was charged with seven offenses, including obstruction of congressional proceedings, in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. The criminal complaint stated that Hale-Cusanelli, who worked at the Naval Arms Station, a support center for armed ships, “has access to a number of weapons.”
Prosecutors said a secret source used a hearing aid on Jan. 14 to record a conversation with Hale-Cusanelli.
“During this conversation, Hale-Cusanelli admitted to joining the Capitol and encouraging other members of the mob to‘ advance ’- providing guidance through both voice and hand gestures,” he said. cost documents. “Hale-Cusanelli told the The Guardian if they had more people they could have taken over the whole building. “In the recording Hale-Cusanelli also admitted to taking a flag and a flagpole which he then saw in another riot. thrown “like a limpet” at a Capitol police officer, the criminal complaint said.
During the investigation it emerged that Hale-Cusanelli was able to hold his security device at the station’s ear, despite dozens of his colleagues saying he was open about the his white supremacist beliefs, and despite being accused of turning up to work with a Hitler-esque mustache.
In a March 23 motion opposing Hale-Cusanelli’s bail – he has been held in jail since his arrest in mid-January – prosecutors said at least 34 Hale-Cusanelli’s colleagues say he made no secret of his antisemitism and racism.
One navy sailor Hale-Cusanelli recalled saying that if he were a Nazi “he would kill all the prayers and eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner”. A small navy official said Hale-Cusanelli had said there was “an examination, women and black people at the bottom of the totem pole”.
Out of more than 160 people arrested before the end of January, nearly one in five were current or former members of the army, NPR reported, and there is evidence of extreme infiltration of the armed forces.
A Pentagon report released in March found that domestic terrorist groups pose a major threat to the military, both by trying to recruit members and, more likely, that existing finishers like -it enters the army for training and combat.
According to the Military Times, authorities estimate that one in five of those charged before the end of February were current or former armed, including Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson. the first to be arrested related to the positions they say were in the riot.
Fracker, 29, is a bodyguard in the national guard, Robertson, 47, who was a military policeman in the army reserve, and the pair, who took pictures of themselves inside the Capitol during the siege, police officers in Virginia until they were fired for their part. in the riot. Fracker and Robertson pleaded not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and disorderly conduct in a confined building, entering and living in a confined building.
Veteran Thomas Caldwell is a veteran of another veteran who is said to have been involved. He was arrested on Jan. 19 and charged with conspiracy, destruction of government property, obstruction of official proceedings, and violent intrusion or disorderly conduct.
Prosecutors allege that Caldwell, a naval intelligence officer for 19 years, according to the Washington Post, led a group of oath-takers – a domestic terrorist group – in a storm the Capitol, accusing Caldwell.
Alleged to Caldwell was the Donovan Crawl, a veteran of the naval group, who prosecutors allege has formed an alliance with Caldwell and others to block the Senate’s conviction the vote of the elective college.
People are not the only ones arrested at the Capitol. In 2020 a coastguard lieutenant was sentenced to 13 years in prison after collecting weapons with the intent to assassinate several Democrat politicians, journalists and socialists.
Federal prosecutors said Christopher Hasson intended to “kill innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country” and described him as a “domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life “.
While the Capitol riots may shed light on the terrorist issues facing the military, there is evidence that the problem has been growing for some time.
A 2019 Military Times survey found that 36% of active duty soldiers “have seen evidence of white supremacist ideologies and racism in the military” – up from 22% the previous year. Among ethnic minorities, 53% reported experiencing racist behavior.
After years of pandering racism and inflammatory astronomy from Trump, under Biden’s administration there is at least an acceptance of a problem. In February Lloyd Austin, the first Black defense secretary in U.S. history, ordered the military to intensify their efforts to fight against white supremacy in its ranks, first by consolidating existing rules on terrorism in the armed forces.
“The job of the American Department of Defense is to keep safe from our enemies,” Austin told the U.S. Senate military services committee in January.
“But we can’t do that if some of those enemies are within our own ranks.”