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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors will lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.
Opening
statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of
Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy for what
prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from
Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.
Defense
attorneys will also get their first chance to address jurors, who were chosen
last week after days of questioning over their feelings about the insurrection,
Trump supporters and other matters.
The stakes
are high for the Justice Department, which last secured a seditious conspiracy
conviction at trial nearly 30 years ago.
About 900
people have been charged and hundreds convicted in the Capitol attack. Rioters
stormed past police barriers, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with officers,
smashed windows and halted the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
But the Oath
Keepers are the first to stand trial on seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil
War-era charge that carries up to 20 years behind bars. The trial is expected
to last several weeks.
Prosecutors
will tell jurors that the insurrection for the antigovernment group was not a
spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage but part of a drawn-out plot to
stop Biden from entering the White House.
On trial
with Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, are Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter
of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas
Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer from Virginia; and Jessica
Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group. They face several other charges as
well.
Authorities
say Rhodes began plotting to overturn Biden’s victory just days after the
election. Court records show the Oath Keepers repeatedly warning of the
prospect of violence — or “a bloody, bloody civil war,” as Rhodes said in one
call — if Biden were to become president.
By December,
authorities say, Rhodes and the Oath Keepers had set their sights on Congress’
certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6.
The Oath
Keepers organized trainings — including one in “unconventional warfare” — and
stashed weapons at a Virginia hotel so they could get them into the capital
quickly if necessary, prosecutors say. Over several days in early January,
Rhodes spent an $15,500 on guns, including an AR-platform rifle, magazines,
mounts, sights and other equipment, according to court documents.
On Jan. 6,
Oath Keepers equipped with communication devices, helmets, vests and other
battle gear were seen on camera storming the Capitol. Rhodes is not accused of
going inside, but telephone 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.
And
prosecutors say the plot didn’t end on Jan. 6. In the days between the riot and
Biden’s inauguration, Rhodes spent more than $17,000 on firearm parts,
magazines, ammunition and other items, prosecutors say. Around the time of the
inauguration, Rhodes told others to organize local militias to oppose the
Democratic administration, authorities say.
“Patriots
entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING
compared to what’s coming,” Rhodes wrote in a message the evening of Jan. 6.
Defense
attorneys have said the Oath Keepers came to Washington only to provide security
at events for figures such as Trump ally Roger Stone before the president’s big
outdoor rally behind the White House. Rhodes has said there was no plan to
attack the Capitol and that the members who did acted on their own.
Rhodes’
lawyers are poised to argue that jurors cannot find him guilty of seditious
conspiracy because all the actions he took before Jan. 6 were in preparation
for orders he anticipated from Trump — orders that never came.
Rhodes’
attorney has said that his client will eventually take the stand to argue that
he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a
militia, which Rhodes had been calling on him to do to stop Biden from becoming
president. Rhodes’ attorneys will argue that what prosecutors have alleged was
an illegal conspiracy was merely lobbying the president to use a U.S. law.
Prosecutors
say Rhodes’ own words show he was going to act regardless of what Trump did. In
one message from December 2020, Rhodes wrote that Trump “needs to know that if he
fails to act, then we will.”
The last
successful seditious conspiracy case was against an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh
Omar Abdel-Rahman, and nine followers convicted in a plot to blow up the United
Nations, the FBI’s building, and two tunnels and a bridge linking New York and
New Jersey.
For full
coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege