From The Magazine: One writer discovers her small Virginia town’s underside of conspiracy, guns and anti-government sentiment.
One writer discovers her small Virginia town’s underside of conspiracy, guns and anti-government beliefOn the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Thomas Caldwell and his wife, Sharon, woke up in a hotel room in Arlington, Va., just outside the nation’s capital. The couple from rural Clarke County, Va., traveled with several members of the Oath Keepers extremist group into Washington, D.C., to protest the results of the presidential election, which they believed had been stolen.
From the beginning, Tom has pleaded not guilty. His defense argues that he is not an official member of the Oath Keepers, did not plan to storm the building or enter a restricted area and — although his language is admittedly bombastic — did not commit a crime.
How had Caldwell crossed a line from political activist to allegedly advocating for violence against the government and its elected representatives? And beyond the Caldwells, I wondered if extremism had grown in Clarke County since I’d left nearly 20 years ago, or if the presence of some Clarke residents at the Capitol was the natural culmination of decades of distorted history and long-simmering anti-government sentiment.
Tom and Sharon Caldwell reside in a one-story house on 19 acres of his family’s land in the remote northwestern part of the county, near the West Virginia border. Tom’s fundraising website explains that he works diligently to care for the farm, weeding out invasive plants and replacing them with native ones.
In 2020 both Tom and Sharon were delegates of their district to the local Republican convention in Berryville. I was eager to meet with the Clarke County Republican Party, and I reached out to its former head Greg Valker, as well as the current chairman, Mark Tate, but both declined my request. Dave LaRock, a Republican from the area who represents District 33 in the Virginia House of Delegates, including part of Clarke, told the Winchester Star that he thought “very highly” of Tom and Sharon.
The Caldwell family moved to Clarke from D.C. sometime in the 1960s, when it was full of apple orchards that later thinned. Tom’s father, Robert Caldwell, had a managerial position with the Interstate Commerce Commission that covered the Shenandoah Valley, according to his obituary. When the Caldwells arrived with their two children, the county was still segregated, integrating its schools a year before Tom entered Clarke County High School in 1967.
On a day thick with humidity that promised to storm, I drove out to the Caldwells’ road. A no-trespassing sign hung on the fence bordering Tom’s property, which was encircled by horse and cow pastures. Nearby, I met a neighbor who knew Tom and was willing to speak only on the condition of anonymity. The man recalled that Tom had attended one of Trump’s inaugural balls in uniform.
At the Dec. 18 public hearing, when it was Tom’s turn to comment, he was emotional; his father, Robert, had died six days before. Sharon also spoke that night, shortly after Tom. Her message was more concise. “Sometimes you have to take a stand. If I have to be a felon with a gun, I will.” I stopped by the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office to meet Sheriff Tony Roper. Roper is the rare public figure who manages to keep both Republicans and Democrats satisfied; he grew up in Clarke, knows pretty much everyone and has run as a Democrat for the previous five terms. Roper’s family owned guns; he is a strong believer in the Second Amendment, but it’s well known that he doesn’t carry a gun on some of his calls.
The government’s evidence against Tom and the Oath Keepers includes a large amount of social media and text messages, some of which appear in numerous court filings as the case slowly makes its way before a jury. Tom’s lawyer, David Fischer, has disputed the use of these messages, claiming the government has excerpted them out of context.
Tom’s messages are peppered with references to not only the quick-reaction force but also various extremist groups. On Jan. 3, Tom wrote to someone affiliated with another group that they could “More or less be hanging around sipping coffee and maybe scooting on the river a bit and pretending to fish, then if it allour guy loads our weps AND Blue Ridge Militia weps and ferries them across.” On Jan.
When the FBI searched the Caldwells’ home on the day of Tom’s arrest, they found a handwritten note labeled “death list” with the name of an elected official from another state. I requested a copy of the list from the prosecution, but they declined to comment. I asked Tom what explained the contents of the note.
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