NASA-Boeing Pipeline
Brandon Cavanaugh, a 37-year-old former NASA intern who worked in the agency’s Jet Propulsion Lab, was sentenced yesterday for storming the capitol, NBC’s Ryan J. Reilly tweeted earlier today.
Per Reilly’s tweet, the former NASA intern was sentenced to “14 days of intermittent confinement to be served on seven consecutive weekends” by Judge Trevor McFadden.
Of course, it’s never good news that anyone might have stormed the Capitol building. A former government employee whose most recent job was as an aerospace engineer for the government-contracted Boeing, though? Particularly unsettling.
Brandon HB
According to the LA Times, Cavanaugh, a Huntington Beach native, was first arrested for his role in the January 6 Capitol insurrection in August of last year.
While analyzing the social media activity of a different rioter, the FBI came across the former NASA intern’s Telegram handle, Brandon HB Groyper. “HB” stands for Huntington Beach; Groyper, as defined by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), refers to a “loose network of alt-right figures who are vocal supporters of white supremacist and ‘America First’ podcaster Nick Fuentes.” Also, Groypers apparently worship Pepe memes, so they’re basically the worst of the absolute worst.
Also, re: white supremacy, Cavanaugh is supremely and violently racist, as demonstrated in court-documented Telegram messages. (We won’t share them here, but if you do care to see just how awful this guy is, be warned that the texts are quite graphic.) Those Telegram messages were linked back to Cavanaugh’s phone number, and then back to Capitol surveillance footage, in which Cavanaugh can be seen careening through the building.
Unfortunately, it’s on-brand employment for NASA, which has a notably bad history with employing — and continuing to honor — actual Nazis.
Type of Guy
Cavanaugh’s sentence isn’t that harsh — McFadden has certainly handed down worse — but it’s something. Although for his part, the engineer reportedly seems to think that his weekend stays and added probation is “extreme.”
“The sentencing for me… probation… would be extreme,” Cavanaugh told the court yesterday during his sentencing, according to CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane. “I’ve already suffered so, so much. It’s taken me a long, long time to recover from this. I’ve lost friends, opportunities.”
“I’m not the type of person who likes to do anything violent,” he reportedly added elsewhere, seemingly forgetting his very violent Telegram messages.
“I’ve gotta tell you… what I’m hearing from you is more anger for how you’ve been treated,” McFadden responded, according to MacFarlane, “than remorse for what you did.”
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