by WASHINGTON — A federal jury in Washington has reached a verdict in the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the right-wing organization Oath Keepers charged in connection with the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was on trial alongside Jessica Watkins, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell; Caldwell was the only one of the five who was not detained while awaiting trial. The five defendants faced felony charges of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, and conspiring to prevent an official from performing his or her duties. Watkins also faced a charge of civil disorder and aiding and abetting because she, as she admitted on the stand, helped push officers into the Capitol.
The seditious conspiracy case is the most serious to emerge from the Justice Department’s extensive investigation into the attack on the US Capitol, and the trial lasted nearly two months. Opening statements in the trial began on October 3, and the jury began deliberating on November 22. Three of the defendants, Rhodes, Caldwell, and Watkins, took the stand in their own defense, with Rhodes telling the jury that it was “stupid” for Oath Keepers. to enter the Capitol.
Federal prosecutors alleged that the five defendants conspired to oppose the peaceful transfer of power from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden, but did not prove that there was a pre-coordinated plot to storm the United States Capitol. Instead, federal prosecutors alleged that those who entered the building — Meggs, Watkins, and Harrelson — seized the opportunity when other rioters stormed the Capitol. One federal prosecutor told jurors that a “sense of entitlement” had led the Oath Keepers to storm the building, while another argued that the defendants “took matters out of the hands of the people and put rifles in their own hands.” hands”.
“They claimed to be involved in the Constitution. Instead, they trampled on her. They claimed they were saving the Republic, but instead they fractured it,” argued Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Nestler.
Members of the Oath Keepers organized a “quick reaction force” at a hotel in Virginia, which a prosecution witness testified contained the largest number of weapons he had seen in one place since his military days. Caldwell stayed at the “QRF” hotel and met with Oath Keepers near Trump’s Washington speech on January 6 before heading to the Capitol with his wife, where they climbed to the top of the inauguration platform installed on the side of the West of the Capitol. .
Another Oath Keeper who pleaded guilty to a non-seditious conspiracy charge gave prosecutors some of his strongest testimony during the trial, telling jurors he was willing to die to keep Trump in office. Jason Dolan testified that he was ready to “conquer or die” and potentially “take up arms” to fight on Trump’s behalf.
Another Oath Keeper who cooperated with the government, Graydon Young, testified that he thought he was part of a “Bastille-type moment”, referring to the storming of the fortress and political prison in Paris during the era of the French Revolution, in 1789.
“I guess I was acting like a traitor against my own government,” Young testified.
While three other Oathkeepers pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, none of them testified during the trial.
The trial featured lengthy messages from Signal exchanged by members of the alleged conspiracy, along with substantial audio from Rhodes before and after the January 6 attack. In a November 2020 conference call, which was recorded by at least one member, Rhodes said that those who opposed Biden were on the same path as the Founding Fathers before the American Revolution.
“You have to make sure [Trump] You know you’re willing to die to fight for this country,” Rhodes told Oath Keepers on the call. “We’re in exactly the same place that the Founding Fathers were in March of 1775… fighting. … We’re not going to get out of this without a fight. There is going to be a fight. But let’s do it smart and do it while President Trump is still the commander in chief and let’s try to get him to do his duty and step up and do it.”
Prosecutors also played audio of Rhodes continuing to plot to oppose the government after the Jan. 6 attack.
“We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there,” Rhodes said in a January 10, 2021 meeting with a man who believed he could deliver a message to Trump. “He would hang fucking Pelosi from the streetlight.”
The trial also featured testimony from Michael Greene, also known as “Whip”, who waived his Fifth Amendment right to testify on Rhodes’ behalf. Greene, a military veteran who worked for the company formerly known as Blackwater, testified that the Oath Keepers were on a security mission and that he did not take Rhodes’ talk of the civil war seriously.
“It’s no different than an old man in the barbershop talking about a fight coming up,” Greene said.
When pressed by a federal prosecutor about whether the elders from the barber shop broke into the Capitol, Greene pointed out that there were many elderly people in the Capitol on Jan. 6 and that he was charged along with two other elderly men. “They’re old as f***,” Greene said of his alleged accomplices.
The Justice Department has charged some 900 people in connection with the attack on the Capitol and is asking Congress for more resources for the investigation. Hundreds of additional cases are in process.
Four other Oath Keepers indicted along with Rhodes (Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel and Ed Vallejo) will go on trial in early December.
