By the late fall of 2020, he was spending time on private Facebook pages where far-right chatter proliferated. He posted long, often angry video soliloquies about how the country was being stolen. He seemed to become increasingly convinced that people were plotting not just against Mr. Trump but against the Constitution, and as a veteran it was his duty to defend it.
Mr. Newbold began holding private meetings at his shooting club with other like-minded members, according to a former member who said he quit because he was alarmed at the growing extremism.
It became super cultlike, said the former member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was afraid of retaliation. I tried to reason with him, show him facts, and he just went nuclear.
After the November election, Mr. Newbolds Facebook posts predicting a coming war worried some people in Lisbon to the point that at least one said she alerted the F.B.I.
Last week when discussing his beliefs, Mr. Newbold dismissed the dozens of court decisions rejecting challenges to the election results, and shrugged off the logistical obstacles to rigging an election conducted by independent officials in more than 3,000 counties. Without citing evidence, he suggested it was naïve to assume the results had not been rigged.
In a long video posted late in December, the former member of the SEALs predicted a communist takeover if people did not rise up to stop it. Once things start going violent, then Im in my element, he said in the video. And I will defend this country. And theres a lot of other people that will too.
A week later, Mr. Newbold organized a group of his companys employees, club members and supporters to travel in a caravan to Washington, and joined the flag-waving crowd that surged toward the Capitol on Jan. 6.read more
From Navy SEAL to Part of the Angry Mob Outside the Capitol
