OPINION:
Steve Levy makes some good points in “A review of Trump’s incredible, tumultuous year” (Web, Dec. 30), but he is completely wrong to say that pardons to Jan. 6 protesters were “unjustifiable.” A lot of bad was done to these people. Consider the following.
On a dark and damp January morning, well before sunrise, Tom Caldwell’s wife woke him to say the FBI was at the door of their Virginia farmhouse, demanding to be let in. Throwing off his CPAP machine and grabbing a cane, Mr. Caldwell hobbled to the door and discovered a SWAT team, including a sniper and a battering ram.
Mr. Caldwell is an elderly, disabled U.S. citizen, a U.S. Navy veteran and former FBI employee with no criminal record. So why the SWAT team? The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is supposed to give the people the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, but it no longer seems to do so.
Although Mr. Caldwell and his wife had attended the Trump speech on Jan. 6, they never entered the Capitol, nor did they damage anything or get into any arguments. Yet Mr. Caldwell, like many others, got taken in anyway.
Mr. Caldwell’s book “The Mouths of the Wicked” details the terrible treatment he received while in custody. It included torture (more than 15 days in solitary confinement), withholding of his regular medication, lack of treatment for infected wounds, beatings (including being repeatedly kicked in the groin), polluted water to drink, nearly inedible food and inadequate clothing. After 50 days and three seizures, his attorney persuaded the judge to let him go home, where he was placed under house arrest.
The case came to trial and was a victory for the Caldwells, but many others went through the same hell. Sadly, the bad guys never seem to get punished.
Mr. Caldwell did eventually get a pardon from President Trump, which was definitely justified.
RUSS STABLEY
Hartwell, Georgia
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