January 24, 2021, 9:18 am
A Texas teenager turned his father into the FBI after realizing he participated in the Capitol riots, showing just how deeply MAGA extremism is dividing families all across the country.
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According to 18-year-old Jackson Reffitt, he watched his father, Guy, change over the years of Trump’s presidency, getting more involved with right extremists and militia groups as he fell for anything Trump and his MAGA nation put forward.
The gradual change culminated in Guy going to Washington, D.C., on January 6. And when he came back and realized the sort of trouble he could get into for any involvement in the breach of the Capitol, Jackson says he threatened their whole family.
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“If you turn me in, you’re a traitor. You know what happens to traitors. Traitors get shot,” Guy allegedly told his son and daughter, according to a statement Jackson made to the FBI.
Jackson spoke with CNN host Chris Cuomo about the tough decision he made in turning his own father over to authorities, and said that “it just felt like the right thing regardless of my emotions and how I felt and how much I loved my family and my dad.”
“I didn’t think he would actually do anything bad,” he continued. “But him saying anything even remotely threatening to me and my sister and my family and government officials, it was just too much.”
Guy is a member of the the Texas Freedom Fighters, and showed up to D.C. in tactical gear. According to authorities, he also told his family that he brought a gun with him to the “protest.”
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Jackson has been perfectly clear that he loves his father, but that as difficult as the whole situation has been for the whole family, he had to do what he felt was right.
“I’m kind of on my own in my family right now with my own views about my dad,” he told Cuomo. “And I do love him. And I do care for him. But that doesn’t ignore everything else he’s said and done and there is no taking it back and that was enough for me to tell the police.”
Despite Jackson struggling with his own family at the moment, he’s received an outpouring of support online.
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Jackson also added that he hopes his dad soon realizes that he made a string of bad decisions, including storming the Capitol and threatening his own children, and that’s what landed him in the situation he’s in right now.
“Would you do it again?” Cuomo asked, referring to turning his father in to the FBI.
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“Yeah. I’d definitely do it again,” Jackson replied.
*First Published: January 24, 2021, 9:18 am
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