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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged with seditious conspiracy, one of the most serious cases to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Amid
complaints by attorneys for Stewart Rhodes and the others that they can’t get a
fair jury in Washington, the judge began winnowing the pool of potential jurors
who will decide the fate of the first Jan. 6 defendants to stand trial on the
rare Civil War-era charge.
The case
against Rhodes and his Oath Keeper associates is the biggest test yet for the
Justice Department in its massive Jan. 6 prosecution and is being heard in
federal court not far from the Capitol. Seditious conspiracy can be difficult
to prove, and the last guilty trial verdict was nearly 30 years ago.
Prosecutors
have accused Rhodes of leading a weekslong plot to violently stop the transfer
of presidential power from election-denier Donald Trump to Joe Biden that
culminated with Oath Keepers dressed in battle gear storming the Capitol on
Jan. 6.
Jury
selection could take several days and the trial is expected to last at least
five weeks.
U.S.
District Judge Amit Mehta on Tuesday denied defense attorney’s latest bid to
move the trial out of Washington. The judge acknowledged that no juries have
acquitted Jan. 6 defendants so far, but said that doesn’t tell him about “bias
or inherent bias of jurors in the District of Columbia.”
The court
already had dismissed more than two dozen potential jurors before Tuesday,
including a journalist who had covered the events of Jan. 6. and someone else
who described that day “one of the single most treasonous acts in the history
of this country.”
The judge
disqualified three additional jurors Tuesday based on concerns about their
impartiality. One man recalled the fear and “trauma” that he experienced on
Jan. 6. Mehta also disqualified a woman who said she used to work as a House
staffer on Capitol Hill and still has many friends who work there.
“I was
really afraid for their lives that day,” she said.
Phillip
Linder, an attorney for Rhodes, urged the judge to disqualify a man who said he
has a close family friend who works for a House member and recalled watching
livestreamed video of the Capitol attack. The judge called it a “close call”
but declined to disqualify the man who said he could set aside what he has heard
about the Oath Keepers.
Hundreds of
people have already been convicted of joining the mob that overran police
barriers, beat officers and smashed windows, sending lawmakers fleeing and halting
the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
Prosecutors
will try to show that an Oath Keepers’ plot to stop Biden from becoming
president started well before that, in fact before all the votes in the 2020
race had even been counted.
On trial with
Rhodes, of Granbury Texas, are Thomas Caldwell, of Berryville, Virginia;
Kenneth Harrelson, of Titusville, Florida; Jessica Watkins of Woodstock, Ohio,
and Kelly Meggs of Dunnellon, Florida.
Caldwell, a
retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer and the only defendant released from
jail ahead of trial, walked with a cane as he slowly entered the courthouse
wearing a dark suit.
Authorities
say Rhodes, a former U.S. Army paratrooper and a Yale Law School graduate,
spent weeks mobilizing his followers to prepare to take up arms to defend
Trump. The Oath Keepers repeatedly wrote in chats about the prospect of
violence, stockpiled guns and put “quick reaction force” teams on standby
outside Washington to get weapons into the city quickly if needed, authorities say.
On Jan. 6,
Oath Keepers were captured on camera storming the Capitol in military-style
“stack” formation. Rhodes isn’t accused of going inside the Capitol, but phone
records show he was communicating with Oath Keepers who did enter around the
time of the riot and he was seen with members outside afterward.
Conviction
for seditious conspiracy calls for up to 20 years behind bars. The last time
prosecutors secured a seditious conspiracy conviction at trial was in 1995 in
the case against Islamic militants who plotted to bomb New York City landmarks.
Three of
Rhodes’ Oath Keepers followers have pleaded guilty to the charge and are likely
to testify against him at trial. Rhodes’ lawyers have claimed those Oath
Keepers were pressured into pleading guilty and are lying to get a better sentencing
deal from the government.
On Tuesday,
Rhodes’ lawyers asked the judge to bar prosecutors and witnesses from using
words such as “antigovernment” or “extremists” in describing the Oath Keepers
to jurors, saying in court documents that it would “add nothing but prejudice
into what already promises to be an emotionally charged trial.”
Rhodes’
attorneys have suggested that his defense will focus on his belief that Trump
would invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a militia to support his bid to
stay in power. Defense attorneys say Rhodes’ actions in the weeks leading up to
Jan. 6 were in preparation for what he believed would have been lawful orders
from Trump under the Insurrection Act, but never came.
The defense
has said that Oath Keepers were dressed in helmets and goggles to protect
themselves from possible attacks from left-wing antifa activists and that the
“quick reaction force” outside Washington was meant for defensive purposes if
Trump invoked the Insurrection Act.
Nearly 900
people have been charged so far in the Jan. 6 riot and more than 400 have
pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.
Also on
Tuesday, a Maine man accused of hurling an unstrung bow at officers and other
assaults on law enforcement was found guilty of several felony and misdemeanor
charges. Kyle Fitzsimons, who wore a white butcher’s jacket and a fur pelt
during the riot, waived his right to a jury and was convicted by a judge in a
bench trial in Washington.
Sentences
for the rioters so far have ranged from probation for low-level misdemeanor
offenses to 10 years in prison for a retired New York City police officer who
used a metal flagpole to assault an officer at the Capitol.
Associated
Press journalist Mike Pesoli contributed to this report from Washington.
Follow the
AP’s coverage of the Capitol riot at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.
More on
Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump