A Good Guy: 279 Hours

Summary

The NPR Politics Podcast: "A Good Guy: 279 Hours" – Detailed Summary

Introduction Released on November 28, 2024, The NPR Politics Podcast presents a compelling two-part investigation titled "A Good Guy," focusing on the events surrounding January 6, 2021, and their lasting impact on the U.S. military and democracy. Hosted by NPR’s seasoned political reporters, Susan Davis, Tom Bowman, and Lauren Hodges delve deep into the story of Joshua Bate, a Marine who participated in the Capitol riot, exploring his motivations, actions, and the subsequent legal and personal ramifications.

The Story of Joshua Bate

Background Joshua Bate, a 24-year-old third-generation Marine from a small town in rural Virginia, had long aspired to join the Marine Corps. Described as tall, strong, and somewhat shy with a "baby face," Joshua's dedication to the Marines was evident from an early age. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a sergeant and earning a Navy Commendation Medal. His ambition led him to secure a coveted internship with the National Security Agency (NSA), symbolizing his commitment to serving the nation.

The Road to January 6th In early 2021, amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread frustration over government shutdowns, Joshua and his friends, Sergeant Dodge Helenan and Corporal Micah Coomer, decided to attend a rally in Washington, D.C., where then-President Donald Trump was speaking. Joshua recounts receiving a text from his buddies inviting him to "D.C. to watch Trump speak" ([09:40]). Influenced by rampant claims of election fraud propagated by media outlets like Fox News and extremist online groups, Joshua believed the rally was a legitimate protest against an allegedly stolen election.

At the Capitol On January 6th, after missing Trump’s speech due to traffic congestion, Joshua and his friends followed the crowd towards the Capitol. Despite encountering minimal resistance at the entrance, with only two police officers present, they proceeded inside unimpeded ([13:45]). Joshua claims he remained a passive observer, stating, "I just stood back and took pictures, and I wasn't chanting, didn't wave any flags or signs" ([18:24]). However, surveillance footage later revealed Joshua actively participating in chanting "Stop the Steal" and holding a "Don't Tread on Me" flag ([35:46]).

Aftermath and Legal Proceedings

Immediate Consequences The breach resulted in nearly $3 million in damages, injuries to approximately 140 police officers, and four fatalities, including Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force veteran shot by Capitol police. Joshua and his friends were arrested shortly after their departure from the Capitol, facing multiple federal charges ranging from entering a restricted building to disorderly conduct ([24:09]).

Legal Battle and Sentencing Initially, Joshua was placed on administrative duty as his legal case unfolded. Understanding the gravity of the situation, he and his lawyer negotiated a plea deal, resulting in a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge. Federal Judge Anna Reyes, a newly appointed Biden appointee, expressed concern over active-duty military members participating in such acts, indicating a potential six-month jail sentence ([30:26]).

However, the tide shifted when over 50 letters of support highlighting Joshua's good character were presented in court. These letters, including one from a Gold Star mother and a childhood friend's mother, portrayed Joshua as fundamentally good despite his actions on January 6th. Moved by these testimonials, Judge Reyes reduced his sentence to 279 hours of community service, aligning with the sentences given to his friends Helenan and Coomer ([31:11] – [32:49]).

Impact on Military and Democracy

A Disproportionate Representation NPR’s analysis revealed that over 200 individuals with military backgrounds participated in the Capitol riot, with nearly a third being Marines—a disproportionate representation considering the Marine Corps is the smallest fighting force. Michael Jensen, a researcher on domestic terrorism at the University of Maryland, highlighted that the Marine Corps has one of the highest rates of extremist activity over the past three decades ([24:40] – [25:08]).

Institutional Response and Challenges The incident has sparked an ongoing debate within the military about addressing extremism among its ranks. Despite the severity of the January 6th events, only a fraction of the arrested service members faced significant legal consequences by mid-2022. This discrepancy raises questions about the military’s effectiveness in investigating and addressing extremist behaviors internally ([25:04] – [25:31]).

Democratic Implications The Capitol riot remains a pivotal moment in American history, testing the resilience of its democratic institutions. The participation of military personnel in such an insurrection undermines the foundational oath to defend the Constitution, posing challenges to the trust placed in the armed forces to uphold democratic values ([07:17] – [09:00]).

Conclusion

"A Good Guy: 279 Hours" offers a nuanced exploration of Joshua Bate's involvement in the Capitol riot, shedding light on the complexities of military loyalty, personal belief systems, and the fragility of democratic institutions. Through firsthand accounts, legal insights, and investigative journalism, NPR underscores the long-term implications of January 6th on individuals and the broader societal framework. The episode serves as a poignant reminder of the delicate balance between patriotic fervor and the sanctity of democratic processes.

Notable Quotes

• Joshua Bate ([03:13]): "I was in January 6th, and I went to the Capitol building, I went inside and I walked around."

• Donald Trump ([05:08]): "I think that the people of January 6th were treated very unfairly."

• Michael Jensen ([24:40]): "It is so shocking when somebody that's taken an oath to protect the country is doing something to harm it."

• Judge Anna Reyes ([30:52]): "It's scary to think that our active duty military were part of the insurrection."

• Joshua Bate ([32:27]): "That the crimes I was being accused of and pled guilty to were not the man that I am."

References For further details on the January 6th criminal cases, visit NPR's January 6th Database.

Transcript

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[Susan Davis]

Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And over this Thanksgiving holiday, we want to bring you a two part investigation from our friends at the NPR Podcast in Embedded. The first part is today, and you'll hear the second part tomorrow. There's a story we told ourselves about what happened on January 6, 2021. On that day, an angry mob attacked the Capitol to try to stop this thing that's so essential for our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. A lot of us, of course, saw it play out on live tv. Reporter Tom Bowman and producer Lauren Hodges were there on the ground. They saw people who looked like they had military training pushing forward, breaking down doors, getting violent with cops, and by the end of the country had lived through one of the worst political riots in our history. But then the story started to change. It got all scrambled and mixed up. Some people started calling the rioters patriots. Trespassers became victims. And that shift has had consequences. Our new series is about one Marine who went inside the Capitol on January 6th. And Tom and Lauren bring us the story he tells about that day, what happened to him afterwards, and the way all of this calls into question the military's ability to guarantee the oath its members take to support and and defend the Constitution for all Americans. It's called a good guy. And before we get started, you should note there is some violent language in this episode. Okay, here's Tom Milaren.

[Tom Bowman]

So it's early 2022. A young Marine hopes to get his dream gig.

[Joshua Bate]

I tried to play it off nonchalantly. Like when I applied, I was like, if I get it, I get it. I don't. I don't. I'm not gonna be bummed if I don't get it. Yeah, but so we. Yeah, but I wanted it.

[Lauren Hodges]

His name is Joshua Bate. He's 24, a third generation Marine.

[Joshua Bate]

From the time I was in middle school, I wanted to be a Marine. There's nothing else I wanted to do. There was no plan B. It was Marine Corps.

[Tom Bowman]

Josh looks like a Marine. He's tall and strong with short brownish hair. And he has his tattoo covering his.

[Joshua Bate]

Forearm, full sleeve, my left arm, a rendition of the Four Horsemen from Revelations.

[Lauren Hodges]

But he's a quiet guy, a little bit shy. He has dimples and sort of this baby face.

[Tom Bowman]

Josh made sergeant early got a Navy Commendation Medal, and then he got what he wanted, that sweet internship he was applying for.

[Joshua Bate]

It's kind of like a playground, like a crate. Your own experience with the nsa, that's.

[Lauren Hodges]

The National Security Agency.

[Joshua Bate]

If you get the internship, you can basically ride that out until retirement if you wanted to, because that's how coveted the internship is.

[Tom Bowman]

There's just one final hurdle, a polygraph exam. And it's kind of straightforward. The polygrapher asks you the usual questions when you're trying to get a top secret clearance, like, are you in touch with any foreigners?

[Lauren Hodges]

Do you use illegal drugs? Do you have gambling problems?

[Tom Bowman]

And also, have you ever tried to overthrow the United States government?

[Joshua Bate]

And I was like, well, it depends on how you look at it. And he was like, well, what do you mean by that? I was like, well, I was in January 6th, and I went to the Capitol building, I went inside and I walked around.

[Tom Bowman]

So this would have been the first time you told anybody about it, correct?

[Joshua Bate]

Yeah.

[Tom Bowman]

What was this guy's reaction?

[Joshua Bate]

I remember him like, kind of going like wide eyed, like, oh, what, what kind of nugget did I just uncover?

[Tom Bowman]

Military polygraphs, you know, they're supposed to.

[Lauren Hodges]

Be pretty easy, pretty black and white. Yes or no answers.

[Tom Bowman]

For anybody in the military overthrowing the United States government, it should be, hell no.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah. So what kind of an answer is it? Depends. Especially with a topic like January 6th.

[Joshua Bate]

I don't think I could have actually answered that question with a no just because I knew what January 6th was and how it was associated to so many people.

[Tom Bowman]

I'm Tom Bowman. I cover the military for npr. And about a year ago, I saw this little news item tucked inside the Washington Post. It was about three Marines who had been arrested for going into the Capitol. One of them was Joshua Bate.

[Lauren Hodges]

And I'm Lauren Hodges. I work with Tom a lot on these military stories. We covered the storming of the Capitol together. And we're both really haunted by the fact that there were so many military people out there that day.

[Tom Bowman]

January 6th, of course, was nearly four years ago, but it's still very much with us.

[Lauren Hodges]

Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning on it. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol where they assaulted law enforcement officers.

[Tom Bowman]

In former President Trump, he's campaigning on it, too.

[Donald Trump]

I think that the people of January 6th were treated very unfairly.

[Tom Bowman]

He calls them patriots, unbelievable patriots, and says he's open to pardoning them if he returns to the White House.

[Donald Trump]

Oh, absolutely, I would. You would pardon those if they're innocent? I would pardon them.

[Tom Bowman]

More than 200 of the people charged with crimes associated with the attack on the U.S. capitol have military backgrounds, almost all veterans.

[Lauren Hodges]

But Josh, he's an active duty Marine who's in line to handle some of the country's most sensitive secrets.

[Tom Bowman]

Josh says he's not an extremist, that he was swept up in the moment. But what we would learn after we met Josh at his home is that the truth about what he did that day can be elusive. Wow. Nice country around here. Look at that old house. Josh lives in a small town in rural Virginia, about 30 miles west of Washington.

[Joshua Bate]

Want to come inside?

[Tom Bowman]

Nice place.

[Joshua Bate]

That's my in laws.

[Tom Bowman]

It's where he grew up, near the Rappahannock river, where he was baptized by his wife's grandfather, an evangelical pastor.

[Lauren Hodges]

Shoes off, please. Okay.

[Tom Bowman]

He's quiet, respectful. You know, a lot of times he peppers his statements with sir, this and sir, that.

[Joshua Bate]

Yes, sir.

[Tom Bowman]

Just so military.

[Joshua Bate]

This is my wife, Ashley.

[Donald Trump]

Hi.

[Lauren Hodges]

Hi, Lauren. Nice to meet you.

[Tom Bowman]

Josh and his wife Ashley, they met in high school.

[Lauren Hodges]

Ashley's petite with long blonde hair slicked back into a headband, and she's holding their infant daughter.

[Joshua Bate]

Can you cut a smile?

[Tom Bowman]

That is one happy baby.

[Lauren Hodges]

A small dog is running around the dining room table where we sit down. And it really felt like Josh wanted us to meet his family and get to know him as a person.

[Tom Bowman]

You know, I think he wanted to convince us in so many ways that he wasn't an insurrectionist. Do you worry this is going to follow you forever? If an employer is going to put your name in Google and what are you going to tell them?

[Joshua Bate]

The truth. The same thing I've done the entire time is whatever question they want to know, I'll answer it. There's no point in hiding from it. You know, the information's out there. They can either find out themselves or they can find out through me. Get it from the source. You know.

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh claims he was just a bystander in the Capitol attack, and he didn't even realize he wasn't supposed to be there.

[Tom Bowman]

But however Josh tries to downplay what he did that day, what was an active duty Marine doing there in the first place?

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh Abate swore an oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So did Josh violate that oath? It's a question that should have a clear answer. But what we found is that for the Marines and for the military as a whole, trying to answer it kicked off its own battle, one that's been going on for years. From NPR's embedded this is a good guy. More after the break.

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[Lauren Hodges]

Josh tells the story of how he ended up inside the Capitol on January 6, he brings up this text message.

[Joshua Bate]

Hey, we're going to D.C. to watch Trump speak.

[Lauren Hodges]

It was from two of his buddies at the Marine base Quantico. They were asking him if he wanted to tag along.

[Tom Bowman]

Their names are Sergeant Dodge Helenan and Micah Coomer, who's a corporal like Josh. They're all in their early 20s. And this was during the height of the pandemic.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah, this was the deadliest month up to that point for the United States. Tens of thousands of Americans had died and vaccines weren't available yet for most people.

[Joshua Bate]

We've got the governor shutting the states down. We've got the Marine Corps telling us you can't go out and do stuff.

[Tom Bowman]

And Josh, you know, he was really frustrated because of the shutdown, and I think his fellow Marines were as well. They were basically confined to their base, couldn't go on a planned trip to Norway. They couldn't even go to bars or restaurants.

[Joshua Bate]

We just cooped up in our rooms and, you know, you didn't join the Marine Corps to stay in your bedroom and work for a couple hours a day and play video games.

[Tom Bowman]

So he's in this kind of little, I don't know, cave of an anger bubble.

[Joshua Bate]

I pretty much pipelined Fox News and that was it.

[Tucker Carlson]

Welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight. Thank you.

[Lauren Hodges]

One of these friends that Josh went to D.C. with, he later told a federal court that Fox News was often playing on TVs all, all around the base.

[Tucker Carlson]

If you want people to believe that our system is real, that our system is worth, say, joining the military and dying to protect, then you've got to get to the bottom of what just happened and you've got to do it.

[Lauren Hodges]

And after the election that November, one of the main messages being broadcast was that fraud had led to Joe Biden's victory over Trump.

[Tucker Carlson]

You can't have fraud in an election because no one will believe in elections and then things fall apart.

[Lauren Hodges]

And Josh says he was also scrolling through these social media accounts that were amplifying these claims, so he was starting to believe them.

[Joshua Bate]

At the time, I thought there were certain spots that may have had some election fraud, but I don't think it was an overall national crisis.

[Lauren Hodges]

The fact is there was no widespread fraud. The election was secure.

[Tom Bowman]

Both Josh and Ashley, they were huge Trump supporters, very traditional values. Ashley said he's a moral man.

[Ashley Bate]

I come from a household where religion, manners, work ethic, that kind of thing is very important.

[Tom Bowman]

The same with you, Josh.

[Joshua Bate]

You know, you can't really mess with Trump when he was in office. Like, I knew that when he come to, like, foreign policy and stuff like that, he wouldn't get us dragged into another war or something like that.

[Lauren Hodges]

So Josh says when his two friends invited him to Trump's rally to hear him speak, he said, sure, I knew.

[Joshua Bate]

That it was probably the last time that Trump had, like, a rally that was this close. And I've always wanted to see him speak in person. Like the last time as his sitting.

[Lauren Hodges]

President, we were not able to get comment from Coomer or Helen, so we only have Josh's version of the events that day. He says they were just going to watch a presidential speech. But Trump had tweeted an open invitation for his supporters to attend this Stop the Steel rally. We'll be wild, he promised. And it blew up on far right social media groups, message boards, media platforms like Infowars. This became the rallying cry. January 6th.

[Donald Trump]

Kick that fucking door open.

[Michael Jensen]

If you have enough people, you can.

[Joshua Bate]

Push down any kind of a fence.

[Lauren Hodges]

Or a wall where Were you when history called? Where were you when you and your children's destiny and future was on the line?

[Tom Bowman]

So on January 6th, Josh says Helenan and Coomer picked him up and they drove north to the White House. It's about an hour away, but he says they got there too late to see Trump speak.

[Joshua Bate]

Traffic going into DC Was mayhem, so he ended up missing the speech.

[Tom Bowman]

So he says they ended up driving over toward the Capitol, and they see a huge crowd. They parked nearby and decided to follow the sea of people heading in that direction, and that's when they went inside. So you thought it was okay to be in the building?

[Joshua Bate]

Well, yeah, because we walked right in. We didn't see any signs that, you know, said, do not enter. No trespassing. And as soon as we walked to the door of the Capitol building, there were two police officers standing right across from the door. I figured if we weren't supposed to be there, they would have told us to get out.

[Tom Bowman]

I covered Trump's speech that day. I got there with a producer early in the morning to find a good spot, maybe head up to the monument, go get a nice view of the whole crowd. I remember walking around the corner and seeing this huge sea of people rising up to the Washington Monument. Must have been 20,000 people there. People had flags and banners. I saw a lot of Marine Corps flags, and there was no anger. It was just. It was almost like a celebration.

[Donald Trump]

Ladies and gentlemen, Please welcome the 45th.

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President of the United States of America.

[Tom Bowman]

And then Trump came out.

[Donald Trump]

Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.

[Tom Bowman]

Really started whipping up the crowd.

[Donald Trump]

We're leading Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes.

[Tom Bowman]

Remember, Trump had no proof of any of this.

[Donald Trump]

And then late in the evening or early in the morning, boom. These explosions of bullshit.

[Tom Bowman]

He mentioned fight many, many times. He said, I'm going to go up to the Capitol.

[Donald Trump]

Let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all.

[Tom Bowman]

I couldn't hear him all that well, so I turned to my producer and I said, did he say he's going to the Capitol?

[Donald Trump]

Thank you very much.

[Tom Bowman]

Trump ended his speech a little after 1pm I followed the crowd to the Capitol, and the closer we got, the mood, it just felt darker, like a thunderstorm was coming in. That's exactly when Lauren called me. She was already up there.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah. I was at the Capitol with our former extremism correspondent, Hannah Alam. The big crowd that Trump sent over was starting to arrive. Thousands of people storm the Capitol.

[Tom Bowman]

Storm the Capitol.

[Lauren Hodges]

The stream of people started to tighten around us. We kind of grabbed onto each other and ran sideways, kind of diagonally outside of the crowd so that we didn't get crushed. We climbed up this hill and started looking down, pushed past the barriers.

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They're now going up the steps to the Capitol.

[Lauren Hodges]

And there were just more and more people coming. It's absolute pandemonium. We asked someone in the crowd, what are you going to do if you get into the building?

[Donald Trump]

The people in this House who stole this election from us, hanging from a gallow out here in this lawn for the whole world to see so it never happens again. That's what needs to happen. Four by four by four, hanging from a rope out here for treason.

[Lauren Hodges]

We watched them rush past the police and start pushing against the doors, trying to break the glass, screaming, we need fresh patriots to the front in order to get through. And then we saw the doors crack open and people started to flood through them. They're in.

[Tom Bowman]

The FBI says the Senate doors were the first to be breached at around 2:12 in the afternoon.

[Lauren Hodges]

And what was it, seven minutes?

[Tom Bowman]

Seven minutes later, Josh went in through those same doors.

[Joshua Bate]

We straight up just walked in the building. There was no signs. We didn't see any, like, barricades up to prevent us from walking in the building.

[Lauren Hodges]

You didn't see the break in?

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Mm, mm, okay.

[Joshua Bate]

No.

[Tom Bowman]

And he told us he didn't hear any yelling or screaming or breaking glass or anything.

[Joshua Bate]

Nobody was trying to, like, you know, be rambunctious.

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh said he just stood back and took pictures, and he wasn't chanting, didn't wave any flags or signs. But most importantly, he says he wasn't involved in any of the scuffles with Capitol Police.

[Joshua Bate]

I'm pretty sure I could see the tear gas, but I, you know, I was far away.

[Lauren Hodges]

It's hard to imagine Josh simply walking into the Capitol building without noticing that the rally around him had turned into a full blown riot. After about an hour of walking around, Josh says he and his friends finally saw some cops.

[Joshua Bate]

The police started coming in to force people out, and we're like, okay, well, obviously they want us out. So we left.

[Tom Bowman]

At this time in the Capitol, the cops are desperately trying to prevent these protesters from getting into the inner sanctum. One of them, Ashley Babbitt, was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer as she lunged through a shattered window near the House floor. Babbitt was an Air Force veteran.

[Lauren Hodges]

And the lawmakers inside, they're scrambling for their safety Hiding behind chairs, under desks, barricading themselves in offices. These lawmakers, by the way, are supposed to be counting votes to certify the election, but instead, they're running for their lives. According to Josh, around this same time, he and his friends are calmly walking out of the Capitol and back to their car.

[Tom Bowman]

After an hour long drive, Josh and his buddies find themselves in a Virginia burger joint.

[Ashley Bate]

When him and the guys got back, I met them at a restaurant.

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh's wife Ashley joins them for dinner at this place called Fatty's.

[Joshua Bate]

They had a really good crab cake burger.

[Lauren Hodges]

And by this time, the Capitol attack is top news everywhere.

[Tucker Carlson]

This is a special report of the CBS Evening News. We are witnessing history and what can only be described as a national disgrace.

[Tom Bowman]

And they look up on the TV screens and they see the violence.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right now, Washington, D.C. is under a mandatory curfew and police and the National Guard are trying to restore order.

[Ashley Bate]

And we're all just kind of looking at it like, holy crap.

[Lauren Hodges]

Ashley says she turned to her husband Mid Burger and was like, did you see any of the stuff they're talking about? And he told her, no, no, no, no, it was nothing like that when we were there.

[Tom Bowman]

And at that point, Jar says he and Coomer and Helen all realized the same thing.

[Joshua Bate]

Kind of like looking at each other like, we should probably not talk about this.

[Lauren Hodges]

He says this is when he took out his phone and started deleting all of the pictures and videos. He wanted no sign of him being there that day.

[Joshua Bate]

Wanted to disassociate completely from January 6th. And.

[Tom Bowman]

And how come? Because you just saw on TV what it had become.

[Joshua Bate]

Yeah, I knew. I knew that if wind broke that Marines were in January 6, that it would reflect poorly upon the Marine Corps. And I knew that even though I didn't do anything bad, I didn't. I didn't cause any violence. I didn't perpetrate any sedition or treason, anything like that. I knew that I would just be grouped in to everything.

[Tom Bowman]

Josh says he Never spoke about January 6th with Helenan and Coomer again.

[Lauren Hodges]

But keeping it quiet would be a lot harder than they thought. One of them just couldn't help himself.

[Joshua Bate]

And that's when they found the boogaloo.

[Lauren Hodges]

That's coming up after the break.

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[Lauren Hodges]

All was said and done, there was nearly $3 million worth of damage at the Capitol. About 140 cops were wounded. Four people died that day.

[Tom Bowman]

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, he was clearly troubled by it when he appeared before Congress later that summer. What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out.

[Lauren Hodges]

And as more information came out on just exactly who stormed the Capitol, it became clear that people with a military background were overrepresented. There were more than 200 of them, according to an NPR analysis.

[Tom Bowman]

And get this, about a third of them were current or former Marines. That's a disproportionate number considering the Corps is the smallest fighting force.

[Michael Jensen]

It is so shocking when somebody that's taken an oath to protect the country is doing something to harm it.

[Tom Bowman]

That's Michael Jensen. He researches domestic terrorism at the University of Maryland. Jensen says the Marines have one of the highest rates of extremist activity going back more than three decades.

[Michael Jensen]

The army is the largest branch, so you'd expect for it to have the highest numbers, but the second highest numbers come from the Marine Corps, and he.

[Lauren Hodges]

Says they don't do a very good job of investigating their own.

[Michael Jensen]

They are having an outsized impact driving these numbers of cases, yet they're doing.

[Tom Bowman]

The fewest investigations, investigations into people like Josh. By the summer of 2022, 850 people had been arrested for their involvement. On January 6th, it was becoming the largest criminal investigation in FBI. But at that point, only one active duty service member had been sentenced in federal court.

[Lauren Hodges]

And speaking of Josh, he's thriving despite his polygraph admission. He gets that internship at the NSA that he really wanted and the Marines send him to a special intelligence school in Florida. Ashley, his wife, gets pregnant. For about two years, it's like January 6th never even happened in Josh's world.

[Tom Bowman]

By the end of 2022, they moved to Fort Meade in Maryland for that internship. But a couple of weeks before it's set to begin, Josh gets a text. His sergeant wants to meet up for a cup of coffee.

[Joshua Bate]

The Starbucks on base didn't give any other information, just said, be there in civvies, civilian clothes. So I'm thinking it's probably something related to the internship. He wants to meet me or something like that.

[Tom Bowman]

They get their coffee and then they're driving in the sergeant's truck and they pull into this other building on base, the headquarters of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The sergeant turns to him, hey, so.

[Joshua Bate]

NCIS wants to ask you a few questions. Nothing to worry about. Just, you know, just be truthful.

[Tom Bowman]

Hey, what did you think?

[Joshua Bate]

Well, I thought it was probably about January 6th. Gut feeling, intuition, call it whatever you want.

[Tom Bowman]

All of a sudden, these agents come from either side of the building and get around him.

[Joshua Bate]

So they had six people to frisk my pockets and put me in cuffs and tell me I'm under arrest for January 6th.

[Tom Bowman]

They put you in cuffs? And then what would you think?

[Joshua Bate]

I was like, shit, this is happening. They basically brought me into like a stereotypical movie type interrogation room with like a one way mirror and a metal table. And basically they showed me pictures of me inside the Capitol building. They showed me pictures of Coomer and Dodge inside the Capitol building.

[Tom Bowman]

Josh spent the night in the D.C. jail, sleeping on a metal bench, a bright light shining from the ceiling. A bologna sandwich for breakfast.

[Lauren Hodges]

So here's how he got caught. Remember that polygrapher, the first person Josh actually told about being in the Capitol?

[Tom Bowman]

Right, the guy who went wide eyed. But you know, it's not just that.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah, he went and told somebody, the FBI. This triggered an investigation from ncis, and not just into Josh. His two friends from Quantico as well.

[Tom Bowman]

Micah Coomer and Dodge Helenan.

[Lauren Hodges]

The FBI had actually been on Coomer's case since at least August 2021.

[Joshua Bate]

I know for a fact they looked into us from Coomer's Instagram post, and that's when they found the Boogaloo.

[Lauren Hodges]

The Boogaloo. Coomer had been posting photos of himself inside the Capitol, and that's what attracted the FBI to him in the first place. When they executed a search warrant to get into Coomer's Instagram account, they found something else. About three weeks after January 6, Coomer sent a private message to a friend. In it, he was talking about one of the extremist movements represented at the Capitol that day. And these are the guys in Hawaiian shirts who often call themselves the Boogaloo Boys. Kumar said to his friend, I'm waiting for a boogaloo. His friend wrote back, asking, what's that? Coomer simply replied, Civil War two.

[Tom Bowman]

Coomer's investigation eventually led back to Josh, who, by the way, says he does not agree with anything Coomer said about a civil war.

[Joshua Bate]

I don't think there will be a civil war. You know, why do you want a war?

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh seemed eager to distance himself from Coomer's message. And remember, Coomer and Helen declined our request for comments. So Josh's account is all we had. But one thing's for sure, all three of them went through those Senate wing.

[Tom Bowman]

Doors, and all three of them were charged with the same crimes. Federal prosecutors had them on four charges, from entering a restricted building to disorderly conduct.

[Lauren Hodges]

Over the next couple of months, Josh was placed on administrative duty at work. And as he and Ashley waited at home for the legal case to run its course, the reality of their situation began to sink in.

[Tom Bowman]

I asked Ashley what she was feeling at that time.

[Ashley Bate]

Fear. I don't know. Fear for the future. My baby?

[Tom Bowman]

I don't know.

[Joshua Bate]

You think?

[Ashley Bate]

All the typical, like, wife and mother things like, what are we gonna do when he loses his job?

[Tom Bowman]

So you were prepared for him to go to jail?

[Ashley Bate]

It was a possibility that we were prepared for, yeah.

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh and his lawyers eventually worked out a deal with prosecutors. They were willing to drop most charges in exchange for a guilty plea on just one misdemeanor. And they were recommending a reduced sentence of 21 days in jail.

[Joshua Bate]

There's a certain level of ownership that we wanted to take, because obviously being there was wrong and sorry. It's wanted to take ownership for what we did.

[Lauren Hodges]

So Josh decided to tell the court, quote, each of the lies circulated by President Trump were incredibly harmful to our democracy and our unity as a nation.

[Tom Bowman]

But whether Josh went to jail. And for how long would come down to one person. Federal Judge Anna Reyes, a recent Biden appointee, and she was assigned to Helen and Kumar as well. We reached out to Judge Reyes, but she didn't want to go on the record.

[Lauren Hodges]

We do know Judge Reyes was stunned that anyone would go into the Capitol on January 6th. Here's what she told Josh during his sentencing hearing. It's scary to think that our active duty military were part of the insurrection. She also told Josh that she was inclined to give him six months in jail.

[Tom Bowman]

And then this shift happened. Judge Anorea started reading these letters of support. There were more than 50 of them from people in Josh's life. Listen to this one. It's a letter from a Gold Star mom whose son was killed in action in April of 2011. She said, quote, I have met many Marines that are truly good Marines and good people. Josh is one of those Marines.

[Lauren Hodges]

The mother of a childhood friend wrote, even though I'm a strong liberal, I would never consider Josh to be a threat. I truly believe he is just fundamentally good.

[Tom Bowman]

Not everyone was willing to write a letter. Josh told us one Marine refused. He said, I like you, Josh, but not what you did.

[Lauren Hodges]

The others, though, they were basically asking the court to focus on Josh's character, not his actions. On January 6th, Judge Reyes says she read all the letters, twice, actually, and they changed her mind about Josh.

[Joshua Bate]

That the crimes I was being accused of and pled guilty to were not the man that I am.

[Tom Bowman]

And not only that, she said, you've made me a better judge.

[Joshua Bate]

My gut feeling was like, okay, it's not gonna be as bad as we thought.

[Tom Bowman]

Judge Reyes gave josh his sentence. 279 hours of community service, one hour, she says, for every Marine casualty in the Civil War. That's the same sentence that Helena and Coomer got as well.

[Lauren Hodges]

So no jail time. Judge Reyes went from condemning Josh for being a part of this violent mob to going out of her way to craft this redemption story for him.

[Joshua Bate]

She mentioned something about how she's kind of envious of the story that I can tell my daughter and help her learn from my mistakes. And that kind of changed my mind on it is now it's a tool. It's not a blemish. You can use this to help others learn and prevent them from making similar mistakes.

[Tom Bowman]

But were Josh's actions a mistake? We talked to him for four hours since his court case wrapped up, and there were holes in his story.

[Lauren Hodges]

We asked him directly about some of his actions that Day. Were you chanting?

[Joshua Bate]

No, no, there's. I didn't chant. They didn't actually show evidence to prove that I was chanting and picketing did.

[Tom Bowman]

At any point you say, this is chaotic. This is a little bit crazy. I gotta get the hell out of here.

[Joshua Bate]

I think if I had actually seen some of the violence, I would have left sooner.

[Lauren Hodges]

The one thing he did tell us was that he helped put a MAGA hat on a statue.

[Joshua Bate]

I just knew I was definitely the tallest one in the group and could reach.

[Lauren Hodges]

He said there was this kind of small lady struggling to put it up there. So he came over, took the hat out of her hand, and helped her place it on the statue's head. A statue of what? Like, was it someone specific or, like, an eagle or what?

[Joshua Bate]

No, I don't remember.

[Lauren Hodges]

Just a person.

[Joshua Bate]

Yeah, it was just a random statue in the rotunda.

[Lauren Hodges]

At one point, Josh called us back for a second interview. When we sat down, he handed me this one sheet of paper. It was part of the FBI's official statement of facts. And he's like, look, this is all they've got on me.

[Joshua Bate]

They appears in the crowd, and then he walks. And it just. It talks about how we walk and walk and walk and walk and walk. And nothing in their summary of our actions is actually, you know, spooky or violent or scary.

[Lauren Hodges]

He kept using the word humorous.

[Joshua Bate]

I think I thought it was humorous. But they. In their summary of my time in the Capitol building, that's all they could really sum it up to, was walking.

[Lauren Hodges]

And then I looked at the bottom of the page, and it says, like, 1 of 45.

[Tom Bowman]

But there's more to this story than just some missing pages. There's also video evidence.

[Lauren Hodges]

The FBI investigation into Josh relied on these screenshots in the Capitol that mostly came from surveillance footage inside. We didn't have access to that, but a few weeks after we talked to Josh, we got an unexpected assist. House Republicans started dropping some 5,000 hours of security camera footage from January 6th on a public video platform. The security footage is silent, so we're going to talk you through it.

[Tom Bowman]

Seven minutes after the doors and windows to the hallway are breached, Josh walks in with Helenan and Coomer.

[Lauren Hodges]

They slowly make their way to the front of this crowd about 20ft away from the door to the House chamber. And at one point, Josh cups his hands around his mouth. And when you watch the video, it's pretty clear he's chanting, stop the steal. Stop the steal.

[Tom Bowman]

At another point, Josh is holding a Don't tread on me flag just before tear gas starts to fill the space.

[Lauren Hodges]

At that point, Josh and his friends leave that hallway and end up in the Capitol Rotunda in a huge crowd. They help a guy try to put a MAGA hat on a statue, and Josh is the one who finally gets it up there by actually climbing the statue.

[Tom Bowman]

When Josh admitted to putting a hat on a statue, he told us he didn't remember which statue it was. But Lauren and I have seen this bust up close. In shiny gold lettering, it reads Martin Luther King Jr. It's hard to miss.

[Lauren Hodges]

It's only when the police, in riot gear, no less, form a line and start to push everyone out that Josh, along with Helen and Coomer, are finally forced to leave the rotunda. It's clear that the video doesn't match up with Josh's story. Josh said he didn't see any violence. It was peaceful. He didn't do anything but walk around. That's just not true. After we watch the surveillance videos, we shared them with Josh's lawyer and asked for a follow up interview. Josh declined. He was done talking to us.

[Tom Bowman]

All those months ago. When we interviewed Josh, we kept asking him, how did he see himself that day? Was he a protester, an insurrectionist, an extremist?

[Joshua Bate]

I would say the line that crosses you from just peaceful protester, kind of just looking around, walking around and extremist is insinuating violence, being associated one of the extremist groups. Once you compromise your integrity far enough to hurt someone or hurt the history behind the building, I think that's kind of what draws that line.

[Lauren Hodges]

Josh's narrow definition of extremism, property damage, bodily harm, conveniently leaves out anything he did that day. But I was there too, and I can say it's hard to compartmentalize like that. What I saw was a mass of bodies pressing their way into the Capitol building. People wielding flagpoles as weapons, hitting cops. It was chaos.

[Tom Bowman]

The power was in the numbers. The sheer size of the mob overwhelmed Capitol Police, and they burst through the doors just minutes before Josh entered the Capitol. It was a riot and it disrupted the Congressional proceeding to certify the election. What happened that day couldn't have happened without everyone.

[Lauren Hodges]

When we talked to Michael Jensen about his work on extremism and the military, he said it's easy to recognize the worst offenders, the proud boys, the homegrown militias. But in his research, he says there's this other more elusive group, people that.

[Michael Jensen]

Are sympathetic to these views, that are promoting these ideas. And that's where we really don't have a good sense of how large that population is.

[Tom Bowman]

So is Joshua Bate one of them?

[Joshua Bate]

This is an administrative separation proceeding, and what this essentially decides is should Sergeant Abate remain in the United States Marine.

[Tom Bowman]

Corps, it's now up to the Marines to decide.

[Joshua Bate]

As Marines, we take oaths to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

[Tucker Carlson]

He violated that oath that day.

[Lauren Hodges]

That's on the second and final episode of A Good Guy. If you want to hear the second and final episode of this series right now, you should sign up for Embedded Plus. It's a great way to support our work and you'll get to access every Embedded series early and sponsor free. Head over to plus.NPR.org embedded a good guy from embedded is a collaboration with NPR's national security team. This series was reported by me and Tom Bowman. It was edited by Luis Treas and Andrew Sussman. It was produced by Adelina Lancieanese. Additional reporting and production from Hannah Alam, Graham Smith, Andrew Mambo, Barbara Van Werkum and the NPR Investigations Team, whose database of January 6th criminal cases you can find on npr.org we'll provide the link in our show. Notes Gilly Moon mastered the episode Fact Checking by Will Chase Episode art by Luke Medina Leana Simstrom is our supervising senior producer, Katie Simon is our supervising editor, and Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. The Embedded team also includes Raina Cohen, Dan Gurma, Ariana Lee, and Abby Wendel. Thanks to our managing editor of Standards and Practices, Tony Cavan, and to Johannes Durgi and Micah Ratner for legal support. Music by Ramtin Arabloue. Special thanks to Odette Youssef, Tom Dreisbach, Ollie Dearden and the staff of All Things Considered for their support during the reporting and producing of this podcast. I'm Lauren Hodges. This is Embedded from npr. Thanks for listening.

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