If Joshua James’ decision to leave his family to join an attack on the U.S. Capitol is a mystery, there are clues to what drove him
he crackle of handheld radios broke the morning stillness. Sound carries in the country, and on the rural outskirts of Arab, Ala., curious neighbors stepped onto their porches, craning their necks to see what was going on. Some thought the police had found an escaped inmate who had been a leading story on the local news. But even from afar, there was no mistaking the outsize yellow letters on the uniformed figures entering the single-story house at the end of the two-lane road: FBI.
For many, reconciling the war hero and family man with the Jan. 6 insurrectionist is not easy. Federal prosecutors have described the Capitol rioters as a fringe group of violent extremists, conspiracy theorists and madmen. The man presiding over James’ case professed bafflement. “Mr. James, I’ve got to tell you, I’m not sure of why anyone in your position, given the life that you’ve led, would do this,” D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta told him at an April hearing.
At least 10% of the people arrested in connection with the siege at the Capitol were current or former military membersThis account is based on interviews with more than two dozen friends, neighbors and community members in Arab; people who knew James through his military service and business dealings; his archived social media posts; and a review of FBI and federal prosecutors’ legal filings.
On June 7, the 19-year-old Army private was in the turret of his armored truck outside Baghdad. His eight-man unit had spent hour after eye-glazing hour staring at the arid terrain, hunting for signs of buried roadside bombs. Suddenly the road erupted into a fireball. “A dump truck full of 2,000 lb. of homemade explosives blew the bridge in half that my squad was on,” Sergeant David Aleman, the unit’s squad leader, tells TIME.
All the while, James’ prior military service remained an important part of his life. He became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. “America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution,” says one chapter’s mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME.
By 2020, even the professional social media presence of the pressure-washing business James had painstakingly built had started to slip. “Invoke the Insurrection ACT NOW!!!” the handle for American Pro Hydro tweeted at Trump in August 2020 in response to the President’s tweets about racial-justice protests.
Founded by a former Army paratrooper in 2009, the Oath Keepers has quickly become one of America’s largest antigovernment extremist groups. It heavily recruits current and former military and law-enforcement members, encouraging them to see themselves as “the last line of defense against tyranny,” according to Oath Keepers websites. The group’s name refers to the oath sworn by members of the military and law enforcement “to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
At around 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, James and Minuta were allegedly spotted on security cameras speeding toward the Capitol in two golf carts as James shouted directions from the map on his phone. While they made their way, a group of seven Oath Keepers were preparing to climb the Capitol’s east stairs in a tactical formation, according to the federal indictment.
Sixty-two days later, a new customer rang James’ phone in need of a pressure-washing job. It was a ruse. While he was away, FBI agents, with the local sheriff and police in tow, rumbled up to his front door in a vehicle neighbors described as a tank. After asking James’ wife and 3-year-old son to step out of the house, they demanded to know if he was building a bomb. Then they flew a drone inside to make sure. For eight hours, they searched the family’s 1,300-sq.-ft.
Many in the community offered an outpouring of assistance. Complete strangers knocked on the door of the James’ home to drop off small amounts of cash and tell them “we’re praying for you.” The family also received an outpouring from outside Arab. More than $184,000 in donations flowed in through an online fundraiser for which Audrey provides regular updates. The funds allowed them to hire Washington lawyers, Joni Robin and Chris Leibig, who say James intends to fight the charges.
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