The trial of five members of the far-right group Oath Keepers, accused of sedition, began on Monday with prosecutors accusing them of arming heavily to attack the Capitol and keep Donald Trump in the White House on Jan. 2021
Department of Justice attorney Jeffrey Nestler said the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, a former military man known for his eyepatch and incendiary speeches, knew exactly what he was doing when he led his militia members to the group’s headquarters. American Congress.
Nestler showed videos of the violent takeover of the Capitol, carried out by dozens of group members dressed in combat gear, noting that Rhodes led them “like a general on the battlefield” as lawmakers tried to certify Joe Biden’s victory.
On January 6, the Oath Keepers “laid a plan for an armed rebellion … conspiring to forcibly oppose the government of the United States,” Nestler said.
“They didn’t go to the capital to defend or help. They went to attack,” he said.
But Rhodes’ attorney, Phillip Linder, assured that his client, who holds a law degree from Yale University, is “extremely patriotic” and a “constitutional expert.”
According to him, the Oath Keepers went to Washington to provide security for Trump’s speech and other Trumpist events that day. “The Oath Keepers are almost a peacekeeping force,” he added.
“Stewart Rhodes had no violent intentions that day,” he insisted.
The lawyer added that the group created an armed “rapid reaction force” that day, if necessary, and that it would have been “defensive” if Trump had needed it.
“Cool coverage”
Rhodes stands trial along with four other regional leaders from his militia.
In court documents, his lawyers claimed that they did not want to overthrow the government but hoped that Trump would declare a state of insurrection under an 1807 law that allows US presidents to deploy certain armed forces in exceptional circumstances.
But for the Justice Department, this argument is just a protection strategy for Rhodes.
“What Rhodes said about the Insurrection Act was legal coverage,” Nestler said.
Since taking the Capitol, more than 870 people have been arrested, and 100 have already received prison sentences, especially those who assaulted police officers. Until now, however, no one had faced the charge of “sedition”.
Stewart Rhodes and four regional leaders of his militia – Kelly Meggs, Thomas Caldwell, Jessica Watkins and Kenneth Harrelson – are the first to be tried on this charge, stemming from a law adopted after the American Civil War to suppress the last rebels in the South.
Sedition, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, involves planning to use force to overthrow the government, or oppose any of its laws. It differs from insurrection, which has a more spontaneous character.
According to the indictment, they “conspired to oppose by force the legal transfer of presidential power.”
Specifically, Rhodes is accused of having started assembling his troops in November 2020. “We are not going to get out of this without a civil war,” he wrote to regional leaders two days after the presidential election, in an encrypted message.
The jury members were selected last week after Judge Amit Mehta denied a defense request to move the trial out of Washington, claiming residents could be biased against the defendants because of the violence unleashed at the time.
Rhodes’ lawyer also asked the magistrate to ban the use of terms frequently used to refer to the Oath Keepers, such as “anti-government”, “organized militia”, “extremists”, “racists” and “white nationalists” during the trial.
