CLIMBING FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM: January 6 Patriot Jeramiah Caplinger Tells His Story

January 6 defendant Jeramiah Caplinger and his daughter

American Dreams

Jeramiah Caplinger was your average American before January 6. He had humble beginnings, came from your average family, and was relatively apolitical. Like many in the modern United States, he endured hardship yet persevered. At one point becoming homeless, it was under President Trump’s economy that Jeramiah was able to rapidly improve his station in life. He had work, a home, and became a father with a family of four. Jeramiah pulled himself up by the bootstraps and lived the American dream. He worked tirelessly in automotive plants to provide a future for his family.

TIM: I’d like to share with the public your motivations for going to DC on January 6, but I’d also like you to talk about who you really are. What should people know about you as an American?

JERAMIAH: I’m literally just a regular guy. Beforehand, I was never really a political person. I just focused on, you know, my life as it was, slowly building it up. For a long time, I was homeless. I couldn’t actually get stable housing and get things in order. I was eventually able to turn it all around. And all of that was under Trump, because my life greatly improved under Trump. Things got cheaper under Trump. Things got better under Trump. I was able to, in one year, I was able to go from being homeless to getting ready to purchase a house. I was proud to say that I got my house before my daughter was born. I had her room set up, diapers, wipes for an entire year, everything.

And then COVID happened, and then my girlfriend lost the opportunity to even have her baby shower. I had never been political before. I knew nothing really about it. All I knew is everyone screaming about Trump is bad and Trump is this and Trump is that. But out on the ground, it’s like, things are getting better. Gas is cheap. I’m making a lot of money. I was able to afford a car. I was pretty over the moon about that. Then the pandemic hits, and then I get called from work saying, “Hey, you can’t come into work. Everything’s getting shut down.” And it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever had been told.

***Please help Jeramiah here.***

January 6, Ray Epps & Trump’s Speech

Jeramiah was frustrated by the same things as millions of other Americans. He was skeptical of the 2020 election, distraught over the Covid lockdowns, and believed that his country was headed in the wrong direction. When he heard there would be a gathering in Washington, DC for President Trump’s election challenges he made sure to show up.

JERAMIAH: Trump a while later tweets out about an event on January 6. It’s like, I saw that tweet and it’s like, “Well, why not?” I was like, okay, I’ve never been to DC before. Trump’s still president. It’s an opportunity to see him. I’ll get to see the Washington Monument, the Ellipse and all this other stuff. I’ll go. So I started making my preparations. I rented a vehicle, took time off of work because I had the PTO time, made sure my girlfriend and kids were all set. I started at like 1pm on January 5th. I drove 8 hours straight from Michigan all the way to DC. I got there about 9:30pm, somewhere around then.

And the ironic thing about it is when I was there, that piece of sh*t Ray-f*cking-Epps was there screaming people needed to go into the Capitol! I was literally right there when he was screaming that. He’s sitting there saying, “Everyone needs to go into the Capitol.” Everyone’s sitting there telling him, “No.” I’m just sitting there behind him, everyone’s sitting there talking about the election, “Stop the steal”, and this guy over here is just screaming. Obviously, I didn’t know he was Ray Epps at the time, but all I see is this dude, this tall older man with a red hat on, talking about we need to go into the Capitol.

Then the next day, woke up around 8 o’clock, 7:30. January 6th. I started driving toward the Ellipse to find somewhere to park and go hear the speeches. I’m seeing South Vietnam flags, all kinds of different Trump flags, American flags, the Betsy Ross. Don’t Tread on Me flags, all that good stuff. I’m seeing An Appeal to Heaven flags, some of the state flags from Texas, Michigan, Ohio. A bunch of stuff. Talk about real diversity! I walked around to find a good spot to listen to the speech but not bump shoulders with people because everyone’s trying to cram in to see Trump.

As I’m walking, here’s this Ray Epps guy again! He’s sitting there asking people with bullhorns to bullhorn people to go toward the Capitol building. It’s like, the speeches haven’t even started yet, what are you talking about? He’s like, “I just want you guys to use that bullhorn. I’m trying to get people to go toward the Capitol building.” Yeah, okay, whatever. I ended up walking closer to the Ellipse. I ended up breaking off to go look at the Washington Monument. I’d never seen it before. I wanted to get a good look at it. Then I sat there and then watched all the speeches from beginning to end. As Trump was getting ready to speak, I moved myself as close to hear as I could. People were already leaving when Trump started talking about how we’re going to “peacefully and patriotically” march down to the Capitol.

***Please help Jeramiah here.***

Climbing the Capitol

Jeramiah would stay for Trump’s speech and arrive long after Ray Epps and others initiated the initial breaches of the Capitol grounds perimeter. He became somewhat famous for being recorded climbing up the side of a staircase leading towards the Capitol building. Most might find it humorous, but the government and media portrayed it as an attack on democracy.

JERAMIAH: We’re gonna march down to the Capitol. It’s like, yeah, I feel something in my bones. I’m just so excited. I’m just over the moon for it. So [Trump] concludes his speech. I ended up going with a giant crowd of people that were marching with a giant American flag. Like a really, really big one. Like, it took a hundred people to hold up. And I got my American flag, my Trump flag, helping to prop it up. I was sitting there marching down. And by the time I got down to the Capitol building, there was already an ocean of people on the lawn and going up. I asked like four to six people, “What is going on?” And I kept getting told the same thing. “Didn’t you hear? Capitol police are letting people in. Go that way.” I was like, “Okay.”

Jeramiah Caplinger climbs a wall to the top of the Northwest scaffolding staircase

JERAMIAH: And there’s already a vast amount of people. There’s so many people on the stairs. In my mind, it’s like, “Well, I don’t want to be trapped shoulder to shoulder like a sardine. I don’t want to follow a crowd.” My mistake was, I was like, “Well, I’ll climb the wall.” There was already a bunch of other people doing it. So I had a lapse in judgment and climbed the wall. Oops.

TIM: You know, it’s funny. The feds had my roommate wear a wire to get me to incriminate myself. And one of the things he said was, “Were you one of those psychopaths climbing the walls?” I was like, “No. That’s unnecessary.” I didn’t even know people were doing that until I saw the video on the news or whatever. They tried to make it seem like it was some war scene. People were scaling the walls of a medieval city or something.

JERAMIAH: They’re acting like this is the Greeks mounting the walls of Troy.

TIM: Hah!

Jeramiah entered the Capitol building like thousands of others. He had seen cops standing back outside the building, and he had heard repeatedly that the Capitol was open to the public.

Jeramiah entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing Doors, which had been kicked open from the inside before he showed up. I myself entered minutes before Jeramiah. Immediately behind Jeramiah was our fellow January 6 defendant Kash Kelly, who was held with me for over a year in the DC Gulag over misdemeanors.

TIM: Let’s pick up from when you became Spider-Man. Heh, alright, so you got up to the top and then what?

JERAMIAH: I got up there and I already see there’s a bunch of people going into the Capitol building and I start walking out toward the area that they’re going into the open doors. I look to my left and- I don’t care what those documents say. I don’t care what the feds have to say. When I look to my left, I see cops with their gear on not doing anything. And when I look to my right, I see all the same things. I don’t care what those feds have to say when it comes to when it came to that point. Anytime I sat there and tried to tell them that, it’s like, you know, you have to sign it as they stated it or there is no deal and they will throw the book at you. That’s something that really got under my skin.

TIM: No, you’re right. I know exactly where those cops were.

Cops stand down at Parliamentarian Door (left) and on Northwest Plaza (right)

As an aside, Jeramiah signed a plea deal and, for those that aren’t aware, when defendants sign a plea deal they must sign off on a misleading Statement of Facts form, agreeing to the DOJ’s distorted version of events. Having watched many hours of video myself, I can confirm what he said about cops standing around both to the left and right of the original Capitol breach site on the western side of the building. Plenty of video confirms this, and it’s not unreasonable the think the average protestor who wandered into the area thought the area was open to the public. Like most of us caught up in January 6, the DOJ’s prosecutors never provide exculpatory evidence that corroborates the defendant’s perspective. Many take plea deals due to that fact alone, knowing they’ll never get a fair shot at defending themselves.

***Please help Jeramiah here.***

Jeramiah wandered through the Capitol building looking for a directory. Most of us there that day actually had no idea where we were going or what to do. Not knowing where to go, he followed the crowd. Jeramiah witnessed an individual spray a fire extinguisher, which took his breath away. Jeramiah made his way to the Capitol Crypt upstairs to the Capitol Rotunda. After wandering through the building, he made his way outside. From this point on rumors of a woman getting shot began circulating. Alerts of an “insurrection” at the Capitol were all over the news. Jeramiah left DC and returned home to his family expecting to resume a normal American life. That wouldn’t be the case.

Ratted on and Raided

Jeramiah never broke anything at the Capitol, didn’t steal anything, and never fought with law enforcement. He peacefully walked through the Capitol before leaving. That didn’t stop him from getting turned in to the FBI and prosecuted. To this day Jeramiah can’t say who the official witnesses against him were. Two informants, Witness 1 and Witness 2, have not been revealed to him. He was never able to face his accusers or those who identified him to the government. I’m told that one defunct account on Twitter called “Michigan Tea” started tagging the FBI and Ryan Riley in photos of Jeramiah as a form of dry snitching. One Michigan news page, mLive, ran a hitpiece on Jeramiah to portray him as radicalized and unhinged in the wake of January 6.

JERAMIAH: I just stopped thinking about it and just got on day by day. Then, three months and one day later in April, at 7 a.m., I have the FBI, DHS, Michigan State Police, and some other people fill up the whole block in front of my house, pounding on my door, with AR-15’s and blast shields. They’re screaming at me to come outside. I’m like, “Where’s your warrant?” They just kept screaming at me to come out. They grabbed me by my arm, pulled me out of the house, they banged my head on the blast shield, then they started walking in, and at the time, my youngest daughter’s not even one yet. And they’re sitting there having AR-15’s pointed at my girlfriend with my daughter in her arms.

They’re sitting there going through my pockets. I don’t even have my glasses on. They never showed me a warrant or anything. They just took me down to the Michigan State Police Office where two FBI agents tried to talk to me and interrogate me. They pushed a piece of paper to me and said, “Read this out loud.” And the paper says, basically, ‘I consent to talk to you.’ So I said the opposite. “I do not consent to talk to you people.“ And they just gave me this look. Then they said, “Are you hungry?” after keeping me detained without food all morning. They gave me a Pop-Tart.

They then took me downtown to Detroit. I sat there until about 3:30 in the afternoon when I finally got released. When I finally get released in the afternoon, I have no wallet, no phone, nothing. When they took my shoes, they took the laces out of them. And then it’s just like, “Oh, you have to leave. We have COVID policy. You can’t stay here. You have to leave. Get out.” So I had to walk all the way home. And I didn’t get home until about 9:30 at night, walking from downtown Detroit to Taylor, Michigan.

Sentencing and Struggling

#IAmKeithLee & #IAmKennyLee created ‘Operation Occupy the Capitol’ and were inciting people to all rush the east lines at once. They went in the Capitol but have not been arrested. The government has used their flyer against other defendants. pic.twitter.com/4O21dkQXaL

— (@FreeStateWill) February 7, 2024

Bizarrely, the government’s sentencing memorandums insinuate that Jeramiah was guilty of pre-planning January 6 because of a social media post advertising “Operation Occupy The Capitol”. The actual organizers behind this viral post, Keith Lee and Kenny Lee, were never charged for January 6, unlike Jeramiah.

A year into the political inquisition against him, Jeramiah pled guilty to 40 USC 5104(d) aka… climbing on Capitol grounds, which is somehow a crime. He was sentenced to 35 days prison, 2 years of probation, over $500 in financial penalties, and 60 hours of community service. His judge also mandated he take a substance abuse program when he legally possessed a medical marijuana card.

Jeramiah Caplinger’s sentence included obnoxious and invasive special conditions following his incarceration

When I began my interview with Jeramiah I asked him how things were. He said, “Just trying to survive and make ends meet.” 

***Please help Jeramiah here.***

JERAMIAH: Probation officer had no issues with me. The therapist lady gave me a stellar review, and they all said they’re I’m good. I was like, “Great, now I’m off probation.” But then my job unexpectedly laid me off. And it’s been months now, and I’m struggling trying to scrape up anything I can.

My unemployment just got denied and I don’t know why. I’d been working all year. They say I’m ineligible. I mean, the only good thing is the fact that I’m no longer on probation. It’s just been stressful because the regime, prices, and everything over the last four years have really brought us to the breaking point now. My days in federal prison put us behind and put us in a hole. My girlfriend’s been a stay-at-home mom but recently got a part-time job to try to help out because of how bad everything’s been. I immediately went back to work after prison.

We were trying to get the money to catch back up on bills, trying to make a little safety net, trying to get everything balanced. And then… I ended up getting laid off because of the stupid strike that was going on between Stellantis, GM, Ford, and the UAW. Had to job hop for a while. So, it’s just been… It’s been chaotic. Instead of being able to have a nice, steady safety net everything’s just been blowing up in my face rapidly. These last three months have actually been really, really bad.

Everyone wants someone who can work over a certain time, I’m restricted because I have to go to school. I go to school at night. I just got my mortgage caught back up after three months. The mortgage is paid, but now everything else is starting to fall behind. And I have no prospects for anything else. I’m really, really, really starting to lose my mind over it.

I’ve gotten to know Jeramiah after leaving prison. He’s a good-hearted man who was treated unfairly. He’s a family man who’s lived the American dream before and desires to live it again. He’s not asking for a handout, but he could use a handup. Jeramiah is a hard-working man who’s looking for work while continuing an education that will help provide for his children. If you have it in your heart, I ask you to consider supporting Jeramiah and the Caplinger family.

***Please help Jeramiah here.***

I would humbly ask for any help possible. A simple dollar would be helpful. I’m not good at asking for help, so this was very hard for me to bring myself to do… Thank you for taking the time to consider this. God Bless All who donate and those who donate prayers, it all helps.

We all need to climb for the American dream again…

Jeramiah Caplinger: January 6 defendant, proud father, American. (Photo from mLive.com)

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