The Morning The FBI Came For Me

On the morning of January 19, 2021, decorated Navy Lt. Commander Thomas E. Caldwell was resting peacefully on his Virginia family farm when FBI agents executed a pre-dawn SWAT raid.

They accused him of being a leader of the Oath Keepers, of storming the Capitol, and of hunting down members of Congress.

He says every single claim was false. Tom was never a member of the Oath Keepers. He never entered the Capitol. He never planned an attack. And yet, thanks to Biden’s DOJ, Tom spent over 50 days in solitary confinement and endured years of prosecution.

Now pardoned, he’s finally free to speak. Here’s an excerpt from his new book, “The Mouths of the Wicked.” — The Editors

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January 19, 2021

“Honey! Get up! The FBI is at the door!”

I will never forget those words or the urgency in Sharon’s voice as she shook me awake that dreadful morning. Bundled under blankets and still foggy from two sleeping pills, I struggled to free myself from the CPAP machine.

Trying to make sense of it all, I leaned on the dresser, mind racing as an intense, other-worldly light flooded in from the great room of our home. Disembodied voices routed the night’s peace and bellowed my name.

My wobbly legs took me to the front door and the tumult beyond.

“FBI! Come out with your hands up!”

The horror show was all about creating an incident. But why? Who cares why! I was going to end up on the short end of the stick if I didn’t handle this correctly and with cooperation. Head spinning, I flashed back to all the times the news reported people being fatally shot after authorities “thought they had a gun in their hand.”

I set my trusty cane beside the door. It would be a sad tale for my wife to have to tell at the funeral of her disabled veteran husband that he was gunned down by the FBI who mistook a walking stick for a firearm.

Slowly I opened the front door to the blinding glare of searchlights. A scant two feet from the window frame of our house, I could make out the manhole-sized disc of a battering ram flowering from the end of a reinforced steel arm, jutting from total darkness. Oh my God, they’re going to smash a hole in our cottage! I let my left arm trail the storm door behind me to ensure it would close slowly, without a slam that could send these possibly trigger-happy jackanapes into a shooting frenzy.

Stepping forward, I raised my hands as far as they would go, considering their limited mobility resulting from shoulder surgeries and the reattachment of arm to torso with a brass rod. I needed to lift them high enough to appease the invisible screamers without reaching the point of initiating the bolt of pain that would cause me to reflexively pull it back to my body. A sudden movement like that could be fatal in the cloud of red dots from rifle lasers swarming me. This wasn’t the first time a firearm had been pointed at me, but I assure you, this was the first time my life was placed in jeopardy by people from the country I love and served.

Credit: BookBay/Thomas Caldwell

Virginia’s winter was on frigid-blast, the porch an iceberg, and the biting west wind slashed my body. Barefoot, clothed only in underwear and nightshirt, I moved forward to the edge, squinting desperately against the artificial sun in my face, trying to find the first of three steps I knew were there somewhere. Trying not to take a well-intentioned but possibly leg-breaking step into the abyss.

I stepped down blindly, relying upon muscle memory born of doing this a thousand times in broad daylight. Until my foot actually reached step number one, I didn’t know if I would be stable enough to make the climb down on my own. Guided by what I now know was divine intervention, I made each halting step until I felt the ouch of the gravel boundary between deep ruts and frosty grass. The wet lawn was only slightly less chilly than the concrete. I walked slowly, aware of shadowy figures at the edge of my field of vision. Beams of red light stabbed from the dark — rifle and pistol lasers — all merely a trigger pull away from dispatching this 66-year-old retired veteran.

The first of many “what’s going on?” inquiries crossed my lips as the designated vet-wrangler snatched me, powerful arms and hands jutting from an inky veil. With purposeful out-sized strides, he yanked me across the slippery grass, shoving my face hard into the cold metal of a car hood. What I was concerned about now was the abrupt leg-weakening shove at the waist — a bending motion not pleasant for someone like me with a spine immobilized by a jumbled mass of metal spacers and screws.

Amid the clinking of metal on metal, I addressed the faceless being through gritted teeth, informing him that my left arm could no longer naturally rotate in such a way as to reach my back due to reconstructive shoulder surgery—no matter how much he kept twisting it. He was at the point of a spontaneous displacement of the metal screw holding my arm to my body. Thankfully, cold metal cuffs were slapped on my wrists in the front instead. Then it was right back to a face plant on the car hood.

All this outrage was conducted with creatures of the dark still yowling orders in the frigid pre-dawn air. They had me in their snare. What more could they want?

In the midst of a cacophony from hell, I labored to lift my head and, to my utter horror, saw my wife standing in the searchlight’s brutal blaze. Time stopped, as did my heart.

Courtesy: Thomas Caldwell.

For there stood Sharon, barefoot, arms straight out from her sides, clad only in one of my super-sized white T-shirts made nearly transparent in the harsh glare of the spotlights. I could see her shivering as her stance proved she carried no weapon and posed no threat. That did not stop the authoritative commands shouted at her with crude epithets tossed in for good measure.

I couldn’t believe my eyes or my ears as she lifted her arms to reveal a single white sock in each hand and softly asked if she could put them on her feet.

As the screamers moved closer to her, to my heart-stopping terror, I saw the devil’s red fireflies dancing all over her face and body. The monsters had drawn down fully automatic weapons of death on my Angel!

My heart cried, “They didn’t kill me, so now they want to kill my wife!”

Sharon stood there, innocently holding a pair of socks and holding my heart—my whole world—in her hands. Her stance was nearly identical to that of Jesus, hung on the cross by hateful elitists who knew not what they were doing. She did not seem to understand the gravity of this bile-laced situation.

My memory flashed back to the murder at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the day an FBI sniper shot and killed Vicki Weaver as she stood on her porch, holding her infant in her arms.

This scene played out for an eternity and still haunts me every day.

“Father, God!” I begged, “God in Heaven, Father, please don’t let them kill my wife! Abba, Father! Please don’t let them murder my wife!

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This excerpt is published by permission from the author and BookBay. “The Mouths of the Wicked” by Thomas E. Caldwell (November, 2025/BookBay)

Thomas E. Caldwell is an author and proud veteran of the United States Navy. A decorated retired Navy Lieutenant Commander, he honorably served our Nation around the world for nearly two decades, principally within the Navy’s Intelligence Community. He is the author of countless strategic and tactical intelligence assessments and possesses a deep understanding and unique perspective of global and domestic threats to our Nation.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.