Jackson Reffitt — who reported his father, Guy Reffitt, to the FBI after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots — told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an interview Monday night that he’s now “terrified” of what his dad might do to him in the wake of President Donald Trump’s J6 pardons.
In fact, Reffitt’s scared enough that he said he got himself a gun.
‘I just cannot feel safe around him. I cannot feel safe around people he knows. I cannot feel safe around the people my mother knows.’
Burnett used the left’s favorite word to describe the riots — “insurrection” — and then asked Jackson Reffitt for his reaction to Trump’s pardons and sentence commutations, which presumably include his father’s.
“I’m honestly flabbergasted that we’ve gotten to this point,” he told Burnett. “I mean, I’m terrified. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
He also said he’s “taken as many precautions as I could recently. I’ve picked up a gun, I’ve moved, and I’ve gotten myself away from what I thought would be a dangerous situation and staying where I thought my dad could find me — or [where] other people” also could locate him.
“People that are gonna feel so validated by these actions, by this pardon,” he added. “I’m just so filled with paranoia about what could happen. I’ve been waiting all day [for] a call from the [Department of Justice] to just figure it out and know what to do next ’cause right now I don’t.”
Reffitt also told Burnett, “I don’t even know what my father’s thinking. I mean, I’ve talked to my father before, but I had thought it [had] gotten better, but it really hadn’t. My dad is still involved with these militias, he still talks with … a martyr’s status. He has no change; he’s more galvanized than ever that I’ve seen. My mom, too. My sisters are waiting outside the jail … right now. And … I feel for them, and I know who they are, and I love them, but I can’t feel safe. … And what could happen when they’re released? I mean, who knows? … My dad once called me a traitor, and he said, ‘Traitors get shot.'”
Burnett suggested to Reffitt that January 6 “broke your family apart.” Reffitt agreed.
“My father’s actions coming from the Trump presidency and [my dad thinking] what he was doing was right just destroyed [my family],” he said, adding, “I made a very, very disgusting decision to inform authorities about what he was doing, and I still feel horrible about it every day. My sisters are out there right now, and they’re rooting for him. … I understand that. I come [from a place] of love toward that. I want to be there for them, but I can’t. … It’s hard.”
Burnett then asked Reffitt whether he still loves his father — and he replied in the affirmative.
“Of course,” Reffitt said. “I love him. I love him. I just cannot feel safe around him. I cannot feel safe around people he knows. I cannot feel safe around the people my mother knows. My mom has used my name to sit in front of a crowded room of these far-right Trump supporters, and whenever she brings up my name and what I’ve done, the crowd will just roar in … anger about, like, ‘What the hell did that kid do?’ … terrifying.”
You can view the video of the interview here.
What else?
Blaze News reported that Guy Reffitt was the first Jan. 6 defendant to go to trial in March 2022. A D.C. jury found him guilty on all five charges, including transporting a firearm in furtherance of a civil disorder, obstruction of justice, hindering communication through force or threat of force, obstructing officers during a civil disorder, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.
But U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich reduced Reffitt’s prison time to 80 months from the original 87-month sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had ordered a new sentencing based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fischer v. United States, which greatly limits use of 18 U.S. Code 1512(c)(2) — a 20-year felony for obstruction of an official proceeding — in Jan. 6 prosecutions.
Newsweek said Jackson Reffitt — a key witness in the government’s case against his father — first reported Guy Reffitt’s political views to the FBI in December 2020, only days before the Capitol riots.
The magazine said Jackson Reffitt later forwarded text messages from his father to the FBI after Guy Reffitt attended Trump’s rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Prosecutors read some of those messages and played audio of family conversations in court as part of their case against Reffitt, according to Newsweek.
Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker weighs in
Steve Baker covered Jan. 6 at the Capitol as an independent journalist and began writing investigative stories about that day for Blaze News in the fall of 2023. Despite only taking video while walking through the Capitol, Baker was arrested last year and pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor charges in November to “avoid the shaming exercise of the trial.”
Baker was set to hear his sentence in March — but the DOJ has now filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him. The filing comes after President Donald Trump on Monday night gave around 1,500 January 6 defendants a promised pardon.
Baker also weighed in on Jackson Reffitt’s CNN interview for Blaze News:
As I mentioned last night on BlazeTV, many families have been broken apart because of January 6. Divorces, children disowning their parents, and this tragedy in the Reffitt family. Many J6 defendants were turned in by family members, but also by members of their churches, neighbors, coworkers, and classmates. While there already may have been a strained father-son relationship in this case, I think you’ll find the common thread among those who “dropped a dime’” on family members to be a difference in their politics. Especially a hatred for Trump by the ones making those calls to the FBI.
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Erin burnett, Cnn, Conviction, Father and son, Guy reffitt, Jackson reffitt, January 6, Sent to jail, Sentenced, Son reports father to fbi, Steve baker, Politics
