Is Air Force holding Maj. Jason Watson in solitary confinement? What we know

In November, a claim (archived) circulated online that the U.S. Air Force had held Maj. Jason Watson, an active-duty airman who publicly called for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, in solitary confinement for more than 80 days while he awaited court-martial. 

CNN reported that the Air Force ordered Watson into “pre-trial confinement” on Aug. 18. Two days later, on Aug. 20, Watson’s lawyer Christopher Mutimer told CNN that Watson was “basically in solitary confinement.” He repeated this claim in early October, telling CNN (at 1:46, archived) that Watson was “still in solitary confinement.”

One X user who claimed Watson remained in solitary confinement in early November — 84 days after the Air Force first ordered him into pretrial confinement — wrote: 

Maj. Jason Watson has been in 24-hour solitary confinement for 80+ days & has reportedly lost 20 pounds, all before any trial. UN experts consider solitary beyond 15 days to be torture. He offered to resign, give up all his benefits, & the Air Force said no. Because he protested.

The claim also circulated on Facebook and Threads (archived, archived). Snopes readers contacted us about the claim.

Speaking to Snopes on Nov. 10, Mutimer confirmed Watson had been detained at Maryland’s Calvert County Detention Center since Aug. 18 and described conditions that he said met generally understood definitions for solitary confinement. 

Mutimer said Watson “is in a room by himself 22 to 23 hours a day. No one stays in there with him, he is not allowed to have any interaction. When he’s let out it’s to shower, make a phone call, get some time in the yard by himself.” He described Watson’s cell as a “pen” where “the light is on all the time.”

The Air Force District of Washington, which the Air Force Press Office said handled questions about Watson, had not replied to a question from Snopes about whether it held Watson in solitary confinement at the time of this writing. Military.com reported that an Air Force spokesperson said on Oct. 14 that Watson had access to “exercise, the library, and personal hygiene items” in his pretrial confinement and that an agreement between the Air Force and Calvert County Detention Center required Watson to be held “separately” from convicted prisoners.

Mutimer corroborated the Air Force’s October statement, saying in November, “Because he’s an officer, he is in the military, that contract says he is not allowed to be with anybody who is not in the military.”

Pending comment from the Air Force District of Washington on the conditions of Watson’s confinement, we leave this claim unrated.

By November, the docket of the Air Force’s military justice branch showed Watson was due for general court-martial in February. Mutimer said he would argue a petition for Watson’s pretrial release on Nov. 17.

Mutimer also confirmed the claim some social media users made that Watson had attempted to resign after his July 1 arrest but said officials had denied his resignation and instead pressed ahead with the court-martial, a move that Mutimer described as “absolutely unheard of.”

Tracking Watson’s case

Capitol Police arrested Watson on July 1 on after he publicly called for Trump’s impeachment while wearing his Air Force uniform. A live stream (at 50:56) of the arrest showed Watson standing on the Capitol steps in uniform while holding a sign that read “Impeach Convict Remove.”

Watson said at a news conference earlier that day that he was calling for Trump to be impeached because he thought the president and Vice President JD Vance had governed in an unconstitutional way throughout their administration. 

Watson highlighted the war in Iran, Elon Musk’s sweeping cuts to federal government and the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration crackdown and killings of protesters as “high crimes and misdemeanors” (at 28:28) for which “the president and vice president must be impeached, convicted, and removed.”

The Air Force major repeated his call for Trump and Vance’s removal while speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett (at 1:52) on Aug. 17. Burnett said (at 2:41) during the interview that the military had placed a “gag order” on Watson after his July 1 protest and that he was “under investigation.”

According to a later CNN report, the Air Force took Watson into pretrial confinement days after he spoke to the network.

CNN reported that the Air Force charged Watson with 10 violations of three articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military’s legal framework, on Aug. 20. Mutimer reportedly spoke to Watson on that date and reported that he was “basically in solitary confinement.”

On Sept. 29, The New York Times reported that an Air Force investigating officer had recommended Watson’s case for general court-martial, the military’s highest level of trial court.

According to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps Department of the Air Force, which investigated and charged Watson, the major faced charges of four violations of articles 88, 92 and 133 of the UCMJ. 

Article 88 (Page 34) of the UCMJ states that any commissioned officer who uses “contemptuous words” against certain public officials, which includes the president and vice president, should face a court-martial. Article 92 (Page 35) states that a person subject to the code that fails to obey an order or regulation can be subject to court-martial. Article 133 (Page 48) states that “Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.” 

The code does not explicitly define what “conduct unbecoming an officer” means.

An Air Force spokesperson reportedly told Military.com in October that the Air Force had acted in accordance with the Rule for Court-Martial 305 when it took Watson into pretrial confinement in August. That rule says someone can be placed in pretrial confinement if there is probable cause they committed “an offense triable by court-martial.”

That rule also says that someone taken into pretrial confinement can ask a military judge to review the “propriety” of the confinement, meaning whether it is appropriate. Mutimer said such a review for Watson would happen on Nov. 17.

According to the UCMJ’s Article 13 (Page 5), it is prohibited to punish a service member awaiting trial. Any confinement before trial must not “be any more rigorous than the circumstances require to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline.”

At the time of this writing, Watson had not been convicted or sentenced. Punishments for service members convicted by court-martial range from reprimands and salary reductions to dismissal or discharge. 

For further reading, Snopes has previously investigated whether an active-duty soldier took part in an anti-immigration-enforcement protest.

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