Of the interviews interviewed, 34 agree that Hale-Cusanelli had ‘extremist or radical views on the Jewish people, minorities and women’. One colleague of the contractor said he discussed his disgust with Jews every day. A supervisor told investigators she had to reprimand him for having a “Hitler mustache” (images taken by prosecutors from Hale-Cusanelli’s phone).
A naval non-commissioned officer said the accused was constantly talking about the Jewish people and recalled that the accused said ‘Hitler should have finished the job’, according to the report’s prosecutors’ summary.
The recent revelation results are the latest evidence that the January 6 uprising, when a crowd of thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results, included a contingent of white supremacists – in addition to extremist militia. and paramilitary groups that used the front page of the mob to violate the Capitol.
Hale-Cusanelli’s case received attention because of its role in the military reserves and active service at a military facility. The new evidence highlights a challenge that policymakers on Capitol Hill and military leadership have begun to face: how to combat extremist ideologies among service members. Many former army and police were among the rioters.
Prosecutors announced that the NCIS investigation was in part a letter of support from one of Hale-Cusanelli’s supervisors at NWS Earle, ao. John Getz, filed by lawyers in defense of Hale-Cusanelli’s release on mortgage. In a two-page letter, Getz told the court he was ‘horrified’ at how [Hale-Cusanelli] was slandered in the press because he was a ‘white supremaker’. “
‘I’ve never known him that way. I know our collaborators will agree, “Getz wrote, adding:” I have never seen Mr. Hale did not treat any of his African-American collaborators differently than anyone else, nor did I hear any distasteful jokes or language left in his mouth. . ”
Prosecutors say, however, that Getz’s letter contradicts his own statements to NCIS investigators about Hale-Cusanelli’s behavior. Getz told NCIS that Hale-Cusanelli would “make racial jokes and not be silent about it.” He said he knew Hale-Cusanelli was a Nazi sympathizer and Holocaust denier, but that “nothing about Hale-Cusanelli’s remarks struck him as dangerous.”
Getz also remembered that Hale-Cusanelli would ‘walk up to new people and ask’ You’re not Jewish, are you? ‘”
“He described Hale-Cussnelli’s attitude as ‘joke but not’, according to the summary of the report.
Due to the inconsistencies – and the fact that the letter of support was undated and unsigned – NCIS investigators visited Getz on March 9, prosecutors revealed. In an interview, he admitted that he wrote the letter and that it contradicts his statements against NCIS in January.
“Sergeant Getz has stated that he does not feel obligated to include in his letter to the court his remarks on the conduct of the accused, as reported to NCIS,” the prosecutors said. “Sergeant Getz added that he wanted to speak ‘positively’ about the accused for the bond trial, and because he was not personally offended by the accused’s behavior.”
Hale-Cusanelli’s lawyer, Jonathan Zucker, pleaded guilty earlier this month to his trial, stressing that Hale-Cusanelli had not been charged with assault on January 6. a Capitol police officer who used pepper spray in the crowd, cultivated and verbally harassed.
Zucker argued that the government’s characterization of Hale-Cusaneli as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer was inaccurate.
‘In fact, during an interview with Mr. “Hale-Cusanelli through FBI agents, he denied it when he said ‘he is not a Nazi …’ and ‘he is not a white nationalist or a white supremaker’,” Zucker said. “There is no evidence that Mr. Hale-Cusanelli is a member of any white supremacist organization,” Hale-Cusanelli was quoted as saying in a February FBI interview.
He also called Hale-Cusanelli’s YouTube channel ‘controversial’, but mainly about local politics in New Jersey. And he said the government’s discovery of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and “The Turner Diaries” at Hale-Cusanelli’s house “does not mention that there were hundreds of other books in Mr. Hale-Cusanelli’s collection.”
Prosecutors refuted these allegations, revealing that Hale-Cusanelli’s phone was full of anti-Semitic and racist content. And according to them, his view was the living impetus for a ‘fantasy of participating in another civil war.’ His prosecutors will give him more time to pursue the goals if he is released pending trial as a result of his alleged actions.
“If nothing else,” wrote American lawyer James Nelson, “the events of January 6, 2021, exposed the extent and determination of right-wing fringe groups in the United States and their willingness to endanger themselves and others to go further. . their political ideology. ”