Does the Military Have an Extremism Problem?

Summary

Podcast Title: Up First from NPR
Episode: Does the Military Have an Extremism Problem?
Release Date: January 5, 2025
Host: Aisha Rascoe
Contributors: Tom Bowman (Pentagon Correspondent), Lauren Hodges (Producer)

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Introduction

In the January 5, 2025 episode of Up First from NPR, host Aisha Rascoe delves deep into a pressing issue: the presence of political extremism within the U.S. military ranks. Triggered by the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, where individuals with military backgrounds played notable roles, the episode explores the extent of extremism in the military and the potential implications as Donald Trump positions himself for a second presidential term.

Background: The January 6 Capitol Attack

Aisha Rascoe sets the stage by recounting the events of January 6, 2021, emphasizing the significant involvement of individuals with military ties in the Capitol riot:

Aisha Rascoe [00:00]: "Tomorrow marks four years since the attack on the US Capitol... there were a lot of people with military ties in the Capitol that day."

The attack resulted in four deaths, injuries to 140 law enforcement officers, and nearly $3 million in damages. Post-attack investigations revealed that approximately 13% of the 1,500 arrested individuals had military experience, a figure twice the national average.

Military Extremism: An Emerging Concern

Tom Bowman and Lauren Hodges highlight findings from their investigation and research by Michael Jensen from the University of Maryland:

Tom Bowman [07:06]: "An NPR analysis found that of the 1500 arrested, some 200 had military experience. That is roughly 13%, about double what you would see with the general population."

Jensen's research indicates a historical rise in political violence within the military over the past 35 years, with the Marine Corps exhibiting the highest rates of extremism relative to its size. Despite this, the Marines conduct fewer investigations into such activities compared to other branches.

Case Study: Sergeant Joshua Bates

A focal point of the episode is the story of Sergeant Joshua Bates, an active-duty Marine involved in the January 6 events:

Lauren Hodges [10:18]: "His name is Joshua Bates. Sergeant Joshua Bate."

Bates, a decorated Marine with promising prospects, participated in the Capitol riot by chanting "Stop the Steal" and vandalizing a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. Despite his actions, Bates received a lenient criminal sentence and is currently facing a military retention hearing. The hearing revealed a split in perceptions among Marine panelists:

Tom Bowman [26:12]: "One panelist said he had a negative perception of what transpired... the other two had a more indifferent stance."

Ultimately, Bates was allowed to remain in the Marine Corps, leaving his future uncertain, especially with the impending confirmation of John Phelan as Defense Secretary, who has signaled intentions to dismantle diversity and anti-extremism initiatives.

Military Leadership's Response

Following the January 6 attack, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin initiated measures to counter extremism, including:

• Stand Downs: Training sessions to remind service members of prohibited activities related to extremism.
• Definition of Extremism: Developed by Bishop Garrison, which focuses on actions rather than political beliefs, emphasizing activities that incite violence or discrimination.
• New Reporting Protocols: Especially within the Marine Corps, requiring timely reporting of suspected extremist activities.

However, these efforts have faced significant pushback:

Joshua Bates [20:14]: "They’re using January 6th as the ultimate justification."

Defense officials like Bishop Garrison have been targeted by right-wing media and faced personal threats, impeding the implementation of his recommendations. The military's top brass, including General Eric Smith, often downplay the existence of an extremism problem due to the lack of concrete data.

Implications of a Trump Second Term

With Donald Trump likely to secure a second term, concerns loom over the future of military efforts to address extremism:

• Potential Policy Reversals: Nominees like John Phelan may seek to eliminate diversity and anti-extremism programs.
• Impact on Extant Policies: Existing guidelines and data collection efforts could be dismantled, hindering the military's ability to combat extremism effectively.
• Perception of the Military: Trump views military personnel as loyalists serving the president, potentially undermining the apolitical stance traditionally upheld by the armed forces.

Looking Forward: Ensuring a Peaceful Transfer of Power

As Congress prepares to certify the 2024 election results, the episode underscores the importance of robust security measures to safeguard the peaceful transfer of power, lessons painfully learned from January 6.

Tom Bowman [31:12]: "The certification of the 2024 election happening tomorrow will be very safe. It’s now considered a national security event."

Conclusion

Up First from NPR presents a comprehensive examination of the concerning trend of political extremism within the U.S. military, using the January 6 Capitol attack as a pivotal case study. As the nation approaches another potential presidential transition, the episode raises critical questions about the military's ability to remain apolitical and the effectiveness of current measures to prevent extremist activities within its ranks.

For a more in-depth exploration, listeners are encouraged to tune into NPR's Embedded podcast series A Good Guy and NHPR's Document podcast episode Amelia's Thing.

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Notable Quotes:

• Aisha Rascoe [00:00]: "There were a lot of people with military ties in the Capitol that day."
• Tom Bowman [07:06]: "Of the 1500 arrested, some 200 had military experience. That is roughly 13%, about double what you would see with the general population."
• Joshua Bates [12:49]: "It couldn't just be that you went and read a thing because you could be a historian."
• Tom Bowman [16:03]: "So Austin came up with a plan. It started with something called a stand down."
• Aisha Rascoe [28:44]: "Trump has had complicated, often controversial feelings about the military and veterans."

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Additional Resources:

• Embedded Podcast Series: A Good Guy
  Explore the detailed case of Sergeant Joshua Bates and other stories related to military extremism.

• NHPR's Document Podcast: Amelia's Thing
  Follow the journey of a Capitol Police officer coping with the aftermath of January 6, 2021.

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Support NPR's reporting by subscribing to Up First+ and unlock sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/upfirst.

Transcript

[Aisha Rascoe]

Aisha. I'm Aisha Rascoe and this is a Sunday STORY from Up First. Every Sunday we do something special going beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. Tomorrow marks four years since the attack on the US Capitol as Congress attempted to certify President Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election. On January 6, 2021, then President Donald Trump, now president elect, once again held a rally to dispute the election results. And then thousands of people charged into the Capitol. Many were chanting stop to steal. Some broke windows and damaged property. Others called for the hanging of public officials like then Vice President Mike Pence and then speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. When all was said and done for, four people died. 140 law enforcement officers were wounded, and there was nearly $3 million worth of damage. And the FBI soon opened what would become its biggest criminal investigation in history. And as the arrest began, something became clear. There were a lot of people with military ties in the Capitol that day. It's a fact that continues to have a ripple effect for the Pentagon, especially now on the eve of another transfer of presidential power and as Trump continues to set up the Cabinet for his second administration. Trump recently said that he might pardon some people who were convicted for crimes on January 6th on his first day in office. Today on the show, we want to dig into the continued legacy of January 6, 2021. Does the military have a problem with political extremism in the ranks? And what does that mean with Trump returning as Commander in chief? NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Lauren Hodges have been asking themselves those questions. Late last year, they released a new investigation with NPR's embedded podcast called A Good Guy about an active duty Marine who participated in the Capitol riot. My conversation about extremism in the military with Tom and Lauren after the break.

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[Aisha Rascoe]

Recorded this conversation before the two acts of violence involving trucks on New Year's Day. A pickup truck carrying an ISIS flag intentionally driven into a crowd of pedestrians in New Orleans, which killed more than a dozen people. And a Tesla cybertruck filled with fuel canisters and fireworks that erupted in front of a Trump in Las Vegas, injuring passersby. Both suspects died as well. Since then, law enforcement has identified the two suspect as retired and active duty service members in the army, respectively, and are investigating the motives for both attacks. Tom and Lauren, welcome to the podcast.

[Lauren Hodges]

Thank you.

[Tom Bowman]

Hey there.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So, you know, I have a lot of questions about this investigation and about the military during the new Trump administration, the upcoming Trump administration administration. But, you know, I want to go back to January 6, 2021. I think most of us watched the attack on the Capitol live on tv. I was in the dentist and, you know, started seeing reports that the barriers were being broken. And then after I got out of the dentist appointment, I realized, oh, shoot, like, this is. This is of another level. But you were both there. Like, you were on the grounds.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah, I was at the Capitol when that huge crowd that Trump sent started to arrive and, you know, pressing in from all sides. It was thousands of people. I watched them eventually break through police barriers and rush up the Capitol steps. I asked one man in the crowd nearby, what do you want to see happen if you get in the people.

[Tom Bowman]

In this house who stole this election from us, hanging from a gallow out.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Here in this lawn for the whole.

[Tom Bowman]

World to see so it never happens again.

[Aisha Rascoe]

That's what needs to happen.

[Tom Bowman]

So there were clearly people committing violence or wanting to see violence. And there were hundreds encouraging it, pushing it forward. Well, hundreds more. You know, they were just kind of watching this all take place. So there were people of all sorts of motivations. And we should say not everyone destroyed property or was physically violent, but most of them had one thing in common. Aisha. They believe Donald Trump's lie that the election was stolen.

[Lauren Hodges]

And another thing that a couple hundred of them had in common was military ties, both veteran and active duty.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Wow. I mean, hearing that tape about hanging them from gallows, I think some of that seems to be kind of like memory wiped, like the violent rhetoric at that time. But then also that some of these people had military ties. Tom, you've covered the military for decades. You've been embedded with troops, Iraq and Afghanistan. Was it surprising to you to learn that some of these people, like attacking the Capitol, were actually people in the military who were supposed to be protecting.

[Tom Bowman]

The U.S. you know, it really wasn't much of a surprise. I know that militias and far right groups like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, they often target veterans for recruitment, in large part because of the military training. But again, not everyone there was part of those groups or. Or committing violence. Earlier in the day, as I was walking through the crowds, I noticed there were a number of people with law enforcement or military ties. I saw some flags with the Marine insignia in a ball cap or a sweatshirt with the Marines eagle, globe and anchor emblem.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah, I saw a lot of that, too. And, you know, afterwards, after this day, Tom and I started following the FBI's arrest announcements to see if there really were as many military folks out there that we remember seeing. And our colleagues at NPR started tracking it, too. An NPR analysis found that of the 1500 arrested, some 200 had military experience. That is roughly 13%, about double what you would see with the general population.

[Tom Bowman]

And we wanted to know more, so we reached out to Michael Jensen. He's a researcher at the University of Maryland, and he studies domestic terrorism. And he found that nearly every branch of the military was represented at the Capitol that day. It is so shocking when somebody that's taken an oath to protect the country is doing something to harm it. So most of the people with military ties that day were veterans, and one of them you may have heard of, who Republican politicians have talked about a lot, and it's Ashley Babbitt. She 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.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So some of these people were veterans. Right. But were there any active duty military members there on January 6th?

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah. So according to Jensen, at least 24 of them were active duty across the various branches and the Reserves. And the branch with the biggest number of participants in relation to its size was the Marine Corps.

[Aisha Rascoe]

The Marines. Do we know why they. They were so represented or overrepresented on January 6th?

[Tom Bowman]

You know, it's hard to say. We asked a lot of people that question. You know, some Marines told us there's a sense the Marines tend to be pretty traditional, more physically aggressive, lean, more politically conservative than maybe some of the other branches.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So you mentioned you talked to that researcher. What did he think about all this?

[Tom Bowman]

The researcher, Michael Jensen, wasn't that surprised. He's been tracking instances of political violence in the military going back 35 years to 1990. In fact, there's been more than 700 documented cases. Stuff like starting physical altercations at protests, plotting violence against public figures. And those cases have been rising year after year leading up to January 6th. And as for the Marines, the Marine Corps has the second most cases of former or current members who are extremists, second only to the army, which is the largest branch. This despite the Marines being the smallest fighting force.

[Lauren Hodges]

And Jensen told us, historically, the Marines don't open very many investigations into these cases. So they have a disproportionately large problem with extremism, but they're doing the least amount of investigations.

[Aisha Rascoe]

In your podcast series, A Good Guy, that you did with NPR's Embedded, you look at the case of one active duty Marine who was stationed at Quantico at the time, and I guess he was there on January 6th.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yep. His name is Joshua Bates. Sergeant Joshua Bate.

[Tom Bowman]

He's a third generation Marine and really a high achieving one. And he was promoted to sergeant early. He has a Navy com recommendation medal and he got an internship offer from the National Security Agency to do intelligence work.

[Lauren Hodges]

And on January 6, 2021, he is 20 years old when he says a couple of other active duty Marines at Quantico base invite him to the Stop the Steal rally.

[Tom Bowman]

And they see this crowd surging toward the Capitol and decide to join it. I asked Josh why. So he thought it was okay to be in the building.

[Lauren Hodges]

Well, yeah, because we walked right in.

[Joshua Bates]

We didn't see any signs that, you know, said don't.

[Lauren Hodges]

Do not enter. No trespassing.

[Tom Bowman]

And as soon as we walked to.

[Lauren Hodges]

The door of the Capitol building, there.

[Tom Bowman]

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. Of course, we know from being there that the scene wasn't as calm as Josh just described.

[Lauren Hodges]

No, not at all. So we combed through some security footage of Josh and his friends in the Capitol. They're in there for about an hour altogether, and they are definitely participating in some rowdy crowds. You can see them taking turns holding a Don't Tread on Me flag. Josh is chanting what looks like Stop the Steel.

[Tom Bowman]

And most notably, the three of them help. Someone else put a MAGA hat on a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. In the capital Rotunda. And they take a picture of it.

[Aisha Rascoe]

You know, I kind of don't know what to say about that. I mean, because Martin Luther King very famously died from political violence. So that was a, you know, what, what a scene to partake in. But Josh and his friends, they're actually active duty Marines, so they take an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. How would you characterize what they were doing at the Capitol that day? How does this factor into the idea of political extremism? Is Josh and what he was doing, extremist activity?

[Tom Bowman]

You know, it's a really hard question to answer. We spoke with Josh for hours on two occasions, and he coughs up to the statue thing, but really downplays or even sometimes denies everything else he did that day. And we asked him that same question. How do you see yourself? Were you a protester or an extremist?

[Joshua Bates]

I would say the line that crosses.

[Tom Bowman]

You from just pizza protester, kind of just looking around, walking around and extremist.

[Joshua Bates]

Is insinuating violence, being associated one of the extremist groups. Once you compromise your integrity far enough to.

[Lauren Hodges]

To hurt someone or hurt, you know.

[Tom Bowman]

The history behind the building, I think.

[Joshua Bates]

That'S kind of what.

[Lauren Hodges]

What draws that line. So it seems like this guy is trying to carve out this neat little box for himself as a peaceful protester. It felt like that's why he wanted to talk to us that day.

[Tom Bowman]

And, you know, maybe that's true. After all, he wasn't beating up cops or breaking off table legs like some of the other people who were there.

[Lauren Hodges]

The main issue for Josh here is that what he told us did not match what we saw on the cameras. And we were wondering, even if he didn't directly hit anyone or break something, did he still engage in extremist activity? After all, this whole day was an act of violence.

[Tom Bowman]

And that question is what a lot of other people were wrestling with, too. People all the way up to the highest levels of the Pentagon.

[Aisha Rascoe]

We'll find out more about that after the break.

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[Aisha Rascoe]

We're back with the Sunday story. So, Tom and Lauren, you've been looking at political extremism in the military since January6. You're seeing all these announcements of arrest, and there were people with military ties among the people being arrested. I would imagine that military leadership is also seeing this in the news. What is their response or what are they thinking seeing some of the people in their ranks being arrested?

[Tom Bowman]

Well, you know, it didn't take long at all for the military to recognize a potential problem in the ranks. President Biden's pick for Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, was sworn in just a couple of weeks after January 6th.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah. Let us play you an excerpt from our two part podcast series, A Good Guy about what happened next. It really helps color it all in. At Austin's confirmation hearing, he didn't mention the assault on the Capitol directly, but he said he was really concerned about internal threats. The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies.

[Tom Bowman]

But we can't do that if some.

[Lauren Hodges]

Of those enemies lie within our own ranks. And one of the first things he did was to remind everyone in uniform about their oath.

[Tom Bowman]

So Austin came up with a plan. It started with something called a stand down. And a stand down in military speak is, okay, we're going to stop what we're doing and we're just going to have a training day to remind service members about what they can't do while on active duty. Dissident activities, overtly political activities, extremist activities. The reactions coming out of these training sessions and from senior officials, they were kind of mixed.

[Joshua Bates]

What we were hearing on the ground from units was that a lot of there was just a lot of confusion.

[Tom Bowman]

Many service members didn't understand what extremism even means.

[Joshua Bates]

Well, you know, what is extremism? My extremism may not be your extremism.

[Lauren Hodges]

That's Bishop Garrison, a West Point grad, an Iraq army vet and a lawyer. Austin tapped him to answer this huge question for the military. How do you define extremism? I'd love to actually get your personal opinion or definition of extremism.

[Joshua Bates]

You, me, and all of the Joint Chiefs would love to have a clean definition of it. And the problem is the definition is it depends. It's one of those things where you kind of know it when you see it.

[Lauren Hodges]

Garrison quickly became the guy that the Defense Secretary was counting on to figure out just how big of a problem extremism in the ranks really is. Garrison worked a really long time to come up with a definition. And as complicated as the work was, it ultimately led him to a pretty simple two part test.

[Joshua Bates]

It almost has to be like a rubric. You can't make for every instance of what may or may not be extremist activity. It really depends on situation, the individual one.

[Lauren Hodges]

Does the person advocate for extremist ideology?

[Joshua Bates]

It couldn't just be that you went and read a thing because you could be a historian. You're reading Mein Kopf because you want to know more about World War II and Hitler 2.

[Lauren Hodges]

Did they act upon that ideology?

[Joshua Bates]

You have an activity that may not in and of itself be prohibited or be criminal, but it leans in that direction. It gives the commander an opportunity to say, wait, wait, wait. What is this about?

[Tom Bowman]

So this isn't about your political views. It's all about your actions. It's inciting violence, it's taking part in.

[Joshua Bates]

Violence, Unlawful stuff, discriminatory stuff.

[Tom Bowman]

Raising money for groups that are anti immigrant, racist, misogynist.

[Joshua Bates]

We're not here to be thought police in any way, shape, or form.

[Lauren Hodges]

And Garrison thought, all right, we nailed this.

[Joshua Bates]

Extremist activity, active participation. Two things go together.

[Lauren Hodges]

So we wanted to know, based on the definition he was working on, whether Josh's actions in the Capitol qualified as extremist activity. He was up in the crowd chanting. The police were pushing him back, and he was refusing to move.

[Joshua Bates]

Well, those last two things you mentioned would both be activities that is something that is prohibited. I would even argue it's always been prohibited.

[Lauren Hodges]

Garrison's goal was to give Secretary Austin a report with recommendations on countering extremism in the ranks. He knew from the beginning that anything related to extremism could get politicized real quick. And the trouble actually began before he even got to put out his report. Back when Garrison was hired to do this work, he was given a title.

[Joshua Bates]

Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Human Capital and diversity, Equity and.

[Lauren Hodges]

Inclusion, also known as dei.

[Tom Bowman]

And that title was typed out in a memo, a memo which the Pentagon released in the spring of 2021. It's standard stuff, three pages long, announcing that Garrison was forming this team to counter extremism in the ranks. Then, May 6th. I'll never forget the day his phone started lighting up. He's becoming a target of attacks by the right wing.

[Joshua Bates]

We uncovered the ideological veteran chief for the United States military, and that's Bishop Garrison.

[Lauren Hodges]

Suddenly, his name was all Over Fox News, the Daily Caller, Steve Bannon's podcast.

[Tom Bowman]

So who is the Pentagon's newly minted MAGA Purge man?

[Lauren Hodges]

Just spend five minutes Googling Bishop Garrett.

[Joshua Bates]

This is an extremist, Black Lives Matter sympathizer type guy. They're calling him the Pentagon's hatchet man.

[Tom Bowman]

A man who believes all.

[Lauren Hodges]

All Trump supporters are racists and extremists.

[Joshua Bates]

Because his job is to purge patriots from the ranks. They're using January 6th as the ultimate justification.

[Tom Bowman]

He's a lunatic.

[Joshua Bates]

Pay attention to this guy. Keep your head on a swivel. I don't think he's up to any.

[Tom Bowman]

Good in Garrison, he starts getting these messages on social media, and that included.

[Joshua Bates]

Everything from threats against my career, my livelihood, to threats of personal violence.

[Tom Bowman]

And he was really worried about his wife and baby back home.

[Joshua Bates]

My wife truly was afraid of, like, someone is going to show up on our doorstep with a long gun.

[Tom Bowman]

Garrison, you know, he started to feel pretty alone. That's because he says the military was shrugging off these attacks against him.

[Joshua Bates]

As one very senior official relayed to me, you know, these types of things are like quicksand. You say, like, he's a good guy. Next question. And that will go away, because if you fight against it, fight against it, you're going to get pulled more into it, I think, not pushing back harder and not fighting for it. Just let it breathe more and let it breathe longer. And that's what we're even, I think, to some degree today, still seeing the remnants of that.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So Bishop Garrison, he comes up with this definition of political extremism, but he starts getting attacked by the right, you know, called, you know, a critical race theorists and all this stuff, which, you know, definitely, he. He was at the center of this kind of firestorm. What happened to the report that he was supposed to file to Secretary Austin and to his recommendations? Like, what did the military do with that report?

[Tom Bowman]

Well, Bishop Garrison's report had all kinds of recommendations, like conducting an insider threat study, developing trainings. Garrison also emphasized in his report that the military really needed to track cases of political extremism. But, Ayesha, those recommendations sat on a shelf for a really long time. It took a really long time for anybody to talk with us about this, too. And believe me, we tried. Eventually, I got to sit down with the top Marine officer, General Eric Smith. He told me he doesn't think the Corps has a problem with extremism either. This is something I've heard over and over across the military, that they don't believe there's an extremism problem in the ranks. But to this day, they've never collected data to back that up. So it's really hard to say.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah, well, the researcher, Michael Jensen we talked to would disagree that they don't have a problem. And when we talked to Bishop Garrison, he was really disappointed that the department didn't really take his work as seriously as he wanted them to.

[Joshua Bates]

My biggest fear is that it's going to take some type of major, massive incident in which people get hurt, if not worse, for the department to actually stop and take action on this.

[Tom Bowman]

But even still, the military has taken some measures. Mostly just this past year, the army and the Navy posted new guidelines about participating in political rallies or fundraising for extremist groups. You know, even, you know, liking extremist posts on social media. So they did put out, you know.

[Lauren Hodges]

Some guidelines, and the Marines outlined some new reporting instructions how people can tell the military that something's going on. If a Marine suspects a fello Marine of extremist activity, they have to report it within one to three days to a senior officer, and that might trigger an investigation.

[Tom Bowman]

And they're also beginning the process of gathering data to determine how prevalent extremism really is.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Why did it take so long for the military to address political extremism?

[Lauren Hodges]

Right. Well, to answer that question, I want to go back to Josh Abate's story for a sec, because it offers a big clue. Josh, of course, is the Marine sergeant whose case we followed and the one who wound up in the Rotunda putting that MAGA hat on the statue of mlk. So the FBI eventually arrested Josh almost two years later, connecting him to some social media posts that one of his friends had made. One of the two guys that he was with in the Capitol. And in court, Josh gets off with a slap on the wrist. Just a couple hundred hours of community.

[Tom Bowman]

Service, and his military record clearly helped him out. The judge was especially impressed by character letters that describe Josh as an exceptional Marine.

[Lauren Hodges]

Right. And then after his criminal sentencing, Josh faces a retention hearing in the Marine Corps, which is sort of like military hr It's a panel of other Marines, randomly drawn, and they decide whether to keep him in the core or to discharge him. And if they kick him out, they then have to decide if the discharge will be honorable or other than honorable. And that second one is a huge red mark. No one wants that on their record.

[Tom Bowman]

And, you know, there's a moment in that hearing that just completely shocked us. Is your portrayal of the events of January 6th positive, negative, or are you indifferent about it. So at the beginning of the hearing, Josh's civilian lawyer asked all three of the Marines deciding this case, how do you feel about January 6th? One panelist said he had a negative perception of what transpired. But here's what the other two had to say. So I wasn't there. I can't say I know exactly what happened there, so I'm indifferent about what happened that day.

[Lauren Hodges]

Depending on what news source you look at, you get a different narrative at.

[Tom Bowman]

This point, to be honest. Tired of hearing about it three years later.

[Aisha Rascoe]

I mean, it sounds kind of like a microcosm of, you know, the U.S. population at this point. But you have two of these three panelists who were deciding, Sergeant Josh abates future in the Marine Corps. They're pretty indifferent to January six. So, I mean, ultimately, what did the panel decide?

[Tom Bowman]

Well, they voted to keep him in the Marine Corps. As you said, it seems like the perception of January 6 at the time of this hearing, which is almost three years later, had gotten much more lukewarm.

[Lauren Hodges]

But that's not the end for Josh. The Secretary of the Navy, who also oversees the Marine Corps, has to either endorse the panel's decision to keep Josh, or he can decide to kick Josh out. But it's been more than a year since the retention hearing, and as far as we know, the secretary still hasn't made a decision, and a new secretary will take over when Trump enters office in a couple of weeks. Trump's nominated John Phelan, a businessman with no military experience, for that job, and the decision about whether to keep Josh might just fall to him.

[Tom Bowman]

So for now, Josh, he's kind of in Marine purgatory, doing some standard office work while he awaits his fate. That internship offer from the nsa, of course, that got scrapped, and he's the only one of his friends left. Even though the Marine panels decided to keep those two other Marines he was in the Capitol with. A top general, didn't agree. He later kicked out one of them for his actions. The other one, he just ran out as enlistment.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So basically, the clock ran out on his time in the military. Like, is that what you expect to happen with Josh, that he'll eventually just get discharged?

[Tom Bowman]

Well, we'll have to see. Josh declined further interviews with us.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah, this was after we told his lawyer that we'd found footage of Josh in the Capitol, and it didn't match his story, so he was done chatting with us. Trump said throughout his campaign that he'd be open to pardoning people convicted of crimes for January 6th if they're, quote, unquote, innocent. In fact, many of the people convicted of January 6th related crimes celebrated from the DC jail cell they call the Patriots Wing after the election results were announced. Now that Trump's been elected to a second term, it's possible that Josh's criminal sentence, as lay as it already is, could be totally wiped away.

[Tom Bowman]

And as far as his military career, it's possible that he gets to stay in the Marine Corps. Trump has had complicated, often controversial feelings about the military and veterans. From my reporting, one thing that becomes really clear is that Trump doesn't see the military service members as apolitical. And they're supposed to be apolitical. He sees them as tools to serve the president. Loyalists. Since the election, Trump has been stacking his cabinet with those loyalists, people who are highly sympathetic to him and his supporters. Some of them, you know, they're unexpected, like Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran who Trump tapped as Defense Secretary. You actually heard Hegseth's voice in the montage of attacks against Bishop Garrison earlier. He's the one who called Garrison the MAGA purge man. So if Hegseth becomes the next Defense secretary, he said he's going to eliminate DEI programs like the one Bishop Garrison was part of, and maybe get rid of these anti extremist efforts as well. But we'll have to see if Hegseth and Trump's other nominations survive a confirmation hearing. With Republicans control in both the House and Senate, they very well might.

[Lauren Hodges]

Yeah. And if that's the case, it's really unclear how the military's efforts to root out extremism are going to fare. Like we mentioned earlier in the year since January 6, military officials came up with a strong definition of extremism and what actions are prohibited. And just this year, they said, we're going to start collecting data on such incidents. This might all go away under Trump. Hegseth has made clear in his public statements that his focus will be on undoing some of the changes the military has made in recent years.

[Tom Bowman]

We're also left wondering if the military missed its chance to hold people accountable for what happened that day. These are things that Lauren and I will be keeping an eye on over the next months and years of the Trump administration.

[Aisha Rascoe]

So, I mean, it sounds like if the military does have an extremism problem, we may not know officially, at least not in the next four years. You know, tomorrow is January 6th, and Congress will once again gather to certify the votes. Like, what can we expect this time four years after that other fateful day. What can we expect for the peaceful transfer of power?

[Tom Bowman]

Well, from everything I'm hearing, the certification of the 2024 election happening tomorrow will be very safe. It's now considered a national security event. The current director of Homeland Security has said it will have super bowl level.

[Lauren Hodges]

Security, but that probably won't be necessary because it was Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol during the last certification when the election didn't go their way. This time it did.

[Aisha Rascoe]

Lauren and Tom, thank you so much for sharing your reporting today, especially about an event that now there's so many different accounts and views on it, but you were there personally and so you saw it for yourself, right?

[Lauren Hodges]

Well, thank you for having us.

[Tom Bowman]

Thank you.

[Aisha Rascoe]

You can hear more of this story, including lots of details in the case of Marine Sergeant Joshua Abate and interviews with military officials in Tom and Lauren's series A Good Guy. Find it in the Embedded podcast feed. Embedded is NPR's home for ambitious long form documentary series. I also wanted to recommend a special episode by our friends at NHPR's document podcast. It follows a Capitol Police officer as she deals with the aftermath of January 6, 2021, a day that still lives in her brain and in her body. Civil dispute calls, you know, just people not getting along with each other, neighbors not getting along with each other, and just that confrontation of them fighting and yelling at each other that just brings the flashback of this guy yelling at.

[Tom Bowman]

Me, we want those traitors.

[Aisha Rascoe]

And that just kind of those emotions and that confrontation of people and you know, those heated arguments are what kind.

[Tom Bowman]

Of bring back those images for me.

[Aisha Rascoe]

From the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio, a story of survival and resilience in the wake of January 6th. The episode is called Amelia's Thing and you can find it by searching NHPR Document wherever you get your podcast. This episode was produced by Adelina Lancian and Andrew Mambo. It was edited by Liana Simstrom and Irene Noguchi with help from Luis Trus and Andrew Sussman. The rest of the Sunday Story team includes Justine Yan and Jenny Schmidt, Fact checking by William Will Chase, Engineering by Kwesi Lee and Gilly Moon. I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is a Sunday Story from Up First. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.

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