Americus attorney William McCall Calhoun will remain behind bars for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol after a federal magistrate judge refused to grant him bond in a hearing Thursday in Macon.
Calhoun was among the initial group of rioters who breached the Capitol and he posted photos of the chaos on his social media accounts. In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution two days after the riot, Calhoun described the mob as “patriotic,” but federal prosecutors argued that, because of his actions and his violent online rhetoric, he posed a danger to the community.
Magistrate Judge Charles Weigel agreed, citing Calhoun’s conspiracy theories about the “deep state.”
“He has been corrupted by or seduced by dangerous and violent ideology that considers the United States to be in a state of civil war, that considers every Democrat to be worthy of execution, that considers every member of the government part of a deep state,” Weigel said, according to reporting by the online legal news source Law & Crime.
Speaking to the AJC, Calhoun tried to claim the attack on the Capitol was “civil disobedience,” but prosecutors said his social media posts paint a different picture.
“The Deep State cannot stop us,” he wrote on Parler, a currently disabled social media site where many Jan. 6 rioters posted their exploits. “They learned that today when we stormed the Capitol and took it. The word is we’re all coming back armed for war.”
Calhoun is charged with entering a restricted building, making a violent or disorderly entry into the Capitol, and obstructed an official proceeding. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He was represented by a public defender because he did not have the money to hire his own attorney.
“Today, the court granted the government’s detention motion, finding a serious risk that Calhoun would endanger the community or flee,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Peter Leary. “Our office, alongside the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, will continue to work to identify, arrest and prosecute those who traveled from Middle Georgia and participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
Calhoun, who has practiced law in Americus for three decades, is one of several people with Georgia connections arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot.
Michael Shane Daughtry of Baker County, who posted a photo to social media from the scaffolding in front of the Capitol, is charged with entering a restricted space, a misdemeanor. Eric Munchel, a former Georgia resident, and his mother, Lisa Eisenhart, 56, of Woodstock, were arrested in Tennessee. Munchel is known among the internet sleuths who helped identify him as the “zip-tie guy” after a photo that allegedly shows him inside the Capitol carrying plastic wrist restraints.
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