Do What’s Right.

Jackson Reffitt

Jackson Reffitt had been taught by his parents to obey the law and to do what’s right.

That’s why on Christmas Eve of 2020, at the age of 18, Jackson contacted the FBI after his father, Guy Reffitt, had threatened both him and his 16-year-old sister if they reported him to law enforcement about the father’s plans to participate in the resurrection at the U.S. Capitol less than two weeks later – January 6, 2021.

The father would participate in the riot as a member of the Texas Three Percenters Militia and was taking his AR-15 rifle and a Smith & Wesson pistol.  He would drive to Washington, D.C. from his home in Wylie, Texas, a northeastern suburb of Dallas.

Jackson discovered that his father was at the Capitol when his father began posting pictures from the insurrection to the family chat group.  During that time, with the riot still unfolding live on television, Jackson got a call from the FBI, asking if his father was at the Capitol.  Jackson confirmed that he was.

Jackson said his father had told him and his sister that if they alerted law enforcement, they would be traitors and that traitors get shot. 

What his father didn’t know was that his son had already turned him in.

Guy Reffitt later was convicted of taking a gun to the Capitol, interfering with two police officers, and threatening his children upon his return home. He received a seven-year sentence.

He remains incarcerated in a Washington, D.C. jail, but is likely to be released soon after January 20, 2025, when Donald J. Trump becomes U.S. President for the second time.

Jackson Reffitt, now about 21, left his family’s home following his father’s arrest and has had almost no contact with any of his family since then.

A new play, ‘Fatherland,’ at the New York City Center in Manhattan, dramatizes Jackson Reffitt’s decision at the age of 18 to turn his father in and the trial which followed.

The two central characters in the play are Ron Bottitta as Jackson’s father and Patrick Keleher as Jackson.

The New York Times describes the play as ‘inherent human messiness with love and hate, tangled up in loyalty and bravery.’

Here is an excerpt from the play, along with an interview with Jackson Reffitt by MSNBC Commentator Lawrence O’Donnell.

Besides MSNBC TV, we acknowledge the Associated Press for some of the content for his story.