Joshua Merritt

Joshua Merritt is a 43-year-old information technology consultant in the Dallas area. Merritt is an Army veteran and that he enrolled in a training program at the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion, the unit he cites in his declaration. But he never completed the entry-level training course. He spent the bulk of his decade in the Army as a wheeled vehicle mechanic. Merritt was honorably discharged from the Army in 2013, after a decade of service, including deployments to the wars in Iraq in 2005-2006 and Afghanistan in 2009-2010, according to his separation papers. His commendations included the Combat Action Badge, which is authorized for soldiers who are “present and actively engaging or being engaged by the enemy, and performing satisfactorily in accordance with prescribed rules of engagement.” Merritt said cybersecurity was a hobby when he was in the Army, and it became a profession once he was out. He used his GI Bill funds to study network security administration at ITT Tech in Arlington, Tex. He said he earned an associate degree from the school, part of a nationwide chain of for-profit colleges that shut down in 2016. He went on to intern and work in several positions related to cybersecurity, he said. In 2017, he joined a small Dallas-area firm called Allied Special Operations Group. Soon, he said, he was a frequent guest in right-wing videos, appearing under the pseudonym “Jekyll,” in shadow and with his voice disguised as he warned that the U.S. election system was vulnerable to being corrupted on a massive scale. Merritt formed his own firm, Cyberoptyx, in 2019. He said the company — which consists of himself and a handful of contractors — specializes in building “cyberinfrastructure” such as making websites and setting up servers. It also does 3-D printing.