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In the weeks since Adam Newbold, a former member of the Navy SEALs, was identified as part of the enraged mob that descended on the Capitol on January 6, he was interviewed by the FBI and resigned. under the pressure of mentoring. and as a volunteer wrestling trainer. He expects his business to lose important customers because of his actions.
But none of this shaken his belief, against all evidence, that the presidential election was stolen and that people like him were right to stand up.
This is surprising because Mr. Newbold’s background would seem to better protect him from the lure of baseless conspiracy theories. In the Navy, he was trained as an expert in sorting out information from disinformation, an underground commando who spent years working in intelligence in association with the CIA, and he once made fun of the idea of obscure undemocratic plots like the “tin foil hat” thought.
Even so, like thousands of others who traveled to Washington this month to support President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Newbold adhered to the fabricated theory that the election was rigged by an obscure cabal of liberal brokers of the power which had pushed the country to the precipice. of civil war. No one could persuade him otherwise.
Photos from Capitol Hill show Mr. Newbold dressed in a black “We the People” T-shirt and riding a Capitol Police motorcycle, a short walk from where officers were fighting rioters.
Mr. Newbold says he did not enter the Capitol and that he was not charged with any crime. But his presence there reflects the volatile brew of partisan politics and viral disinformation that helped lead the assault.
Mr. Newbold’s worldview is evident from his Facebook account. In a combative swear-laden video he posted a week before the riot, he repeated debunked but widely disseminated claims about the election, saying “it’s absolutely unbelievable, the mountains of fraud evidence election and voter fraud and the machines and people who voted, dead who voted. When the commentators challenged him, he responded with swear words and lines like “Yeah keep laughing, you’ll laugh when you’re crushed.”
A striking aspect of the angry mob on Capitol Hill was the fact that many of its members appeared to come not from the fringes of American society, but from the white palisade backgrounds of Main Street – firefighters and realtors, a marketing executive and a member of the municipal council. , all captivated by weak conspiracy theories. Mr. Newbold’s presence showed just how compelling the story of the rigged election had become.
His experience should have made it hard to cheat. A few years earlier, when he helped organize a military training exercise known as Jade Helm 15, he was the target of the same kind of unfounded and potentially dangerous fervor over an alleged sinister government plot – and he laughed at it.
Even after the Capitol riot, however, he expressed confidence that he was not fooled by the election.
“I have been to countries all over the world brainwashed by propaganda,” Newbold said in a lengthy telephone interview last week, adding that he knew how disinformation could be used to manipulate the masses. “I have no doubts; I am convinced that the election was not free and fair.”
He said he believed anonymous elites had quietly pulled off a coup by manipulating electoral software, and warned the country was still on the brink of war.
Mr. Newbold, 45, lives in the rural hills of eastern Ohio and is one of three brothers who all went on to become Navy SEAL commandos. He spent 23 years in the elite force, according to Navy records, including seven in the Naval Reserves, before retiring as Chief Petty Officer in 2017. He received two elite honors from the Marine for her bravery in combat deployments and several others for her good conduct. .
A former SEAL who served with him at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia said Mr. Newbold was smart and had a good reputation on SEAL teams, and had worked with the CIA on intelligence gathering.
After the Navy, Mr. Newbold moved to the small town of Lisbon, Ohio, opened a cafe, and started a business called Advanced Training Group that taught SEAL-style tactics to members of the military and police. , and maintained a gymnasium and shooting range. club for locals.
Through his company, he became involved in the design and conduct of Jade Helm 15, an eight-week military training exercise in Texas and other southwestern states in the summer of 2015 that comprised more than a thousand special operations and conventional troops practicing simulated missions, including covert reconnaissance and night raids.
When a PowerPoint slide summarizing the exercise leaked, it was grabbed by fringe Facebook groups and professional conspiracy theory promoters like Alex Jones, who began to claim that Jade Helm was a secret plot to do invade Texas by federal troops, seize the guns of citizens and impose martial law. Unfounded rumors have circulated of “black helicopters” and Walmart stores allegedly turned into detention camps.
The storm of political paranoia sparked by a simple drill became so fierce that some members of Congress, who later questioned the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., began to demand answers, and Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas National Guard to maintain watch.
In the end, the exercise went off without a hitch. Mr Newbold said in the interview that he and the other former special operators who planned the training exercise mocked the paranoia and even made t-shirts saying, “I went to Jade Helm and all I got was this tin foil hat.
Last week, he admitted that the frenzy of disinformation surrounding Jade Helm could have been deadly. The people of Texas had been frightened to the brink of violence. Three men were arrested after planning to attack the exercise with homemade bombs.
“There were actually farmers and landowners who threatened to shoot at them if anyone was on their land, so there was real concern,” Newbold said. “It’s funny, but these are things we have to take seriously.”
At the time, Mr. Newbold dismissed what he had witnessed as fringe delusions, unaware that it was a precursor to the fantasies that had just sucked in many more Americans, including military troops, police officers, members of Congress and a sitting president – not to mention Mr. Newbold.
Mr. Newbold is a longtime registered Republican who has said he voted for Mr. Trump. Over the past four years, as mainstream media coverage of the President grew harsher and Mr. Newbold’s sometimes strident support on Facebook drew more reprimands, he migrated to news sources and discussion forums. who shared his point of view.
In late fall 2020, he was spending time on private Facebook pages where far-right chatter was proliferating. He posted long and often angry video soliloquies about how the country was being robbed. He seemed increasingly convinced that people were plotting not only against Mr. Trump but against the Constitution, and as a veteran it was his duty to defend it.
Mr Newbold has started holding private meetings at his gun club with other like-minded members, according to a former member who said he resigned because he was alarmed by growing extremism.
“It has become super bigoted,” said the former member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was afraid of reprisals. “I tried to reason with him, to show him facts, and he just went nuclear.
After the November election, Mr Newbold’s Facebook posts predicting an upcoming war worried some people in Lisbon to the point that at least one said they alerted the FBI.
Last week, when discussing his beliefs, Mr Newbold rejected dozens of court rulings dismissing challenges to election results and ignored logistical obstacles to rigging an election led by independent officials in more of 3000 counties. Without citing any evidence, he suggested that it was naive to assume the results had not been rigged.
In a lengthy video posted at the end of December, the former SEAL member predicted a Communist takeover if people didn’t stand up to stop it. “Once things start to get violent then I’m in my element,” he said in the video. “And I will defend this country. And there are plenty of other people who will too.
A week later, Mr. Newbold organized a group of employees, club members and supporters from his company to travel to a trailer in Washington, and joined the crowd waving the flag that floated towards the Capitol on January 6.
In a video posted that evening, he is seen saying that members of his group were “on the front lines” of the unrest. “Guys, you would be proud,” Mr. Newbold told his viewers. “I don’t know when was the last time you stormed the Capitol. But that’s what happened. It was historic, it was necessary. He adds that members of Congress “were shaking in their shoes.”
In last week’s interview, Mr. Newbold sought to downplay his involvement in the events on Capitol Hill. He said he sat on the police motorcycle only to ward off vandals, and that he traveled to Washington not to incite violence but to protect Capitol from angry liberals in case where the Senate would agree to stop the certification of the election. .
After the Capitol attack, he deleted some of his most inflammatory online posts. But what happened in Washington apparently did not make him question his beliefs. He said he was always sure the elections were stolen and the country was on the path to global autocracy.
And in a video released six days after the riot, when it became known that people had died, Mr. Newbold said on Capitol Hill he felt “a sense of pride that the Americans have finally risen.” He did not rule out turning to violence himself.
“I make no apologies for being a brutal man willing to do tough things in tough situations,” he said. “Sometimes it is absolutely necessary, and it has been throughout our history.”
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