A Washington jury on Tuesday found Stewart Rhodes guilty of “seditious violence” on January 6, 2021. The jury found it proven that the founder and leader of the Oath Keeper militia wanted to keep President Donald Trump in power.
The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, has been convicted of seditious conspiracy. He faces a long prison sentence.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the militant group Oath Keepers wanted to violently overthrow the American government on January 6, 2021. A jury in Washington reached this verdict on Tuesday after a trial lasting several months against the 56-year-old former US paratrooper.
The jury also considered it proven that a companion of Rhodes – the 53-year-old leader of the Oath Keepers in the state of Florida – assisted him in his endeavor. The two now face long prison sentences. However, three other co-defendants were acquitted of the main charge of “seditious conspiracy”, as the corresponding offense is called in American criminal law.
Rhodes, who wears a black bandage over his left eye after a shooting accident, sees himself as a close ally of President Donald Trump’s ouster. His Oath Keepers traveled to the capital almost two years ago to directly or indirectly prevent confirmation of Joe Biden’s election victory. They saw themselves as a rapid reaction force in expected clashes between right-wing and left-wing demonstrators. In a Washington suburb, the Trump warriors set up a weapons cache in hotels, just in case.
As you know, things turned out differently. Trump supporters kept to themselves on January 6, 2021. An initially peaceful protest rally at the White House turned violent as thousands gathered at the Capitol. Although Rhodes was part of this crowd, the graduate of the elite Yale University did not take part in the storming of the congressional seat. Rather, Rhodes monitored the increasingly chaotic situation from a safe distance. He reportedly enjoyed the way “patriots” took matters into their own hands.
“We should have taken guns”
However, Rhodes later expressed disappointment that Trump had not used the riots in the White House as an opportunity to declare a state of emergency and thus stay in power. This would have been his “damn duty,” he wrote in an SMS that the prosecution submitted during the trial. A few days after the bloody storming of the Capitol, the Oath Keeper even said: “We should have taken guns”and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hanging from a lantern.
The jury took it as proven that it wasn’t just idle chatter — though in federal Judge Amit Mehta’s courtroom, Rhodes didn’t look like the general on the battlefield the national Justice Department made him out to be.
Defense attorney Philip Linder, on the other hand, claimed the Oath Keepers were on January 6 as a bodyguard and peacekeeping force. The self-proclaimed warriors “didn’t take part in most of the violence” that shook the whole country. Also, the Oath Keepers had no intention of storming the Capitol. The prosecution presented no evidence at the trial to indicate that the militia had any direct contacts with the White House.
Justice Department says it’s satisfied with the guilty verdicts
In an initial reaction, Rhodes’ defense attorneys described the trial as fair – although conservative or right-wing defendants repeatedly complain that they cannot count on a proper trial in the democratic stronghold of Washington.
Officials from the Department of Justice, the prosecuting authority in the Oath Keepers case, expressed their satisfaction with the guilty verdicts in what was the most lengthy Capitol storming trial to date. His department, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, will hold accountable all those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on American democracy.