The Capitol riot trial that tore a family apart

When Guy Reffitt became the first person to stand trial for storming the US Capitol, he had to face not only a judge and jury, but his own son on the witness stand.

Those who know Reffitt say he is a big talker. So much so that his defence lawyer used it as his main argument for dismissing the case against Reffitt, who stood trial for bringing a handgun to the US Capitol during the 6 January riot.

But it was the volume of evidence of this bragging – detailed in texts, videos and audio – that convinced jurors of his guilt in a unanimous verdict on Tuesday after less than four hours of deliberations.

He will be sentenced on 8 June and faces up to 60 years in prison for five felony counts, including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress; trespassing at the Capitol while carrying a holstered semiautomatic handgun; interfering with police in a riot; and witness tampering.

Reffitt’s conviction is a result of the sprawling federal investigation into the 6 January riot, which has resulted in prosecutors bringing charges against hundreds of individuals.

The guilty verdict, delivered quickly and on all counts, is a huge victory for the government and is expected to affect the upcoming trials and defence strategy of other defendants indicted by the justice department.

But Reffitt’s trial has also shown how fissures dividing Americans have cracked wide open. It revealed how the deep political divide in the US has affected ordinary Americans and their families, often in a way that is emotionally wrenching and deeply personal. The divide has reached beyond the dinner table to pit family members against one another – in this case father against son – with far-reaching consequences.

For it was Reffitt’s son’s testimony against his father – whose political views he had long opposed – that formed a crucial part of the prosecution’s case.

Weeks before Guy Reffitt drove from his hometown of Wylie, Texas, to Washington DC to storm the US Capitol, his son Jackson, 18 at the time, had already tipped-off the FBI.

It was a string of messages from his father on Christmas Eve to the family text chain that alarmed Jackson. In them, the older Reffitt announced his intention to go to the nation’s capital “to rise up the way the Constitution was written”.

During his testimony, Jackson said that he reported his father to the FBI because he was worried about his plans.

Afterwards, said Jackson, he struggled with feelings of guilt for betraying his father: “I just felt gross.”

At first, Jackson heard nothing from the FBI. Then, in early January 2021, Guy Reffitt got behind the wheel of his wife’s Chevrolet, with AR-15 rifles stashed away, and drove to Washington DC.

“We took the United States Capitol,” he texted his family after the siege. “We are the Republic of the People.”

When he returned home to Texas, Guy Reffitt spoke with his son and other members of his family about his experiences. He bragged about his role in the Capitol assault, said Jackson in his testimony.

“I started the fire,” Guy Reffitt told his family. He did not know that his son was secretly recording him on his mobile phone.

He threatened his son, warning him not to tell the authorities.

“If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” his father told Jackson. “And traitors get shot.”

Soon after, Jackson spoke with an FBI agent. Within days, his father was arrested.

On the day that his son testified against him, Reffitt walked into the courtroom with a swagger. But when Jackson took the stand, Guy’s demeanour changed. The big, burly man covered his face with his hands and doubled over in his chair, turning away from his son to hide his tears.

The two men looked strikingly similar that day. They both had the same lush locks – Guy kept his hair back, in a tight ponytail. Jackson’s hair fell loose, past his shoulders. They both wore a dark jacket, no tie, and a light-coloured shirt. Guy’s shirt was pale blue; Jackson’s was pink.

But the similarities ended there.

Once their political views diverged, so did father and son. A few years ago, Jackson was “moderately left”, he testified, while his father was “moderately right”. That changed with Trump’s election in 2016. Afterwards, Jackson said, they began to shift: “We both went further in our own direction.”

The rift between the father and son was profound, eating away at their family. Guy’s older brother, Nathan Reffitt, a 50-year-old electrician, called Jackson a “snowflake” and overly sensitive.

“My nephew turned against his father,” Nathan told the BBC while attending his brother’s trial. “It’s sad that our country has come to this.”

After giving media interviews, Jackson moved out of his parents’ home in early 2021, using a crowdfunding campaign to support himself. Despite his differences with his family, Jackson has remained close to some of them.

During an afternoon break in the courthouse, in the midst of three hours of testimony, Jackson saw his older sister Sarah, 24, in a hallway. “Look at you,” he called to her, admiring her stylish outfit: she wore a black top, stilettos and carried a Kate Spade bag. He ran up to her, and they hugged. They both cried for a moment before he was ushered back into the courtroom.

Sarah described her father as a loving, gentle man. “Even the things he says that sounds like he would be violent,” she told the BBC, her voice trailing off. “He doesn’t hurt anyone.” She remembered that it was always their father the children would turn to if they would get into any trouble, because he was so forgiving.

As father and son moved to the right and the left, respectively, the atmosphere at their house became fraught. Outside the family home, the Reffitts flew a Texas Three Percenters flag, showing support for a militia group (members claim only three percent of people in the colonies took up arms against the British during the American revolution).

Guy kept a Smith & Wesson 40-calibre handgun on his bedside table and carried it around the house, into the kitchen, the living room, everywhere. He communicated with his family on a group chat, sounding off about corrupt politicians in Washington.

“Time to remove them,” he wrote in late December 2020 in a message, one that prosecutors displayed on courtroom screens. “That’s why I’m going to DC.”

During this time, Trump was looking for a way to stay in power. “What comes next is about tyranny,” Guy wrote in another text that month, hinting at what he planned to do in the nation’s capital: “Hold my beer and I’ll show you.”

Family and friends, gathered in the courthouse on that day and throughout the trial, said that Guy’s texts and remarks have been blown out of proportion.

Guy’s wife, Nicole, 48, a woman with short, white-blonde hair who chain-smoked during court breaks, claimed he was a big talker, and that she and their children joked about it: “We say: ‘Don’t do a Guy.'” That means swearing a blue streak, the way he does, or trying to out-do someone or impress them.

During one of these breaks, Nicole sat near her mother-in-law, Linda Reffitt, 74, who lives in an RV and travelled with her oldest son, Nathan, to Washington DC for the trial. The afternoon sun streamed into the room, as they recalled Guy’s foul language, some of which he had recorded in a video on 6 January.

Prosecutors played the audio in the courtroom. In the recording, Guy Reffitt talked about the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, referring to her in abusive language while speaking of a vague plan for “dragging” her out of the Capitol.

At moments like these, Nicole wished she could slink out of the room, she told BBC. Still, she said, it’s all just talk: her husband, she insisted, is not a threat to anyone.

After the verdict, she claimed her husband was used as an example to make all the one-sixers (6 January defendants) take a plea. “Do not take a plea one-sixers,” she urged, “we got this.”

Jackson, meanwhile, tweeted that it was “impossible to be happy” about the verdict. “My father could have possibly been home by now getting mental help if he took a plea deal,” he added.

When asked what the family name, Reffitt, means, Sarah looked it up on her phone. “It means ‘powerful and peace’,” she said with a sad smile. “Very ironic.” Then she nodded her head and said the name reflected who her father was, and that she was not surprised to see the meaning of their family name: “Makes sense to me.”

She said that a desire for one-upmanship fuelled her father, causing him to not only swear like a sailor, but also drove him to Washington DC.

Specifically, she said, he wanted to show Jackson the kind of man that he is.

“He’s always trying to impress Jackson,” she said. “And he didn’t really impress anyone.”