Today, the first of a two-part investigation from NPR's Embedded.

Sgt. Joshua Abate's career in the Marine Corps seemed to be taking off. He was about to start a top-clearance internship at the NSA. But first, he had to take a standard polygraph test.

And then a routine question came up: Have you ever tried to overthrow the U.S. government? Abate told the polygrapher something that he'd been keeping quiet for nearly two years: He followed the crowd that broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

This admission leads to a different kind of January 6 story. Abate says he's not an insurrectionist. So why did it take him so long to talk openly about that day? And what did he actually do inside the Capitol?

Digging into FBI documents and CCTV footage, NPR's Tom Bowman and Lauren Hodges follow Abate's case in federal court. Reexamining their own firsthand accounts of what happened that day, their reporting offers a fresh look at January 6 and what it means for the military.

LEARN MORE:

- Explore NPR's database of January 6 criminal cases.
- Read the findings about extremism in the military from researcher Michael Jensen and the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy