The open letter Rhodes wrote calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act was shown to jurors Thursday.
In the letter, Rhodes urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in light of the “fraud” ongoing in the 2020 election. (There was no widespread fraud and this is a long-debunked conspiracy theory.)
The people would have “no choice” but to engage in a “bloody revolution;/civil war” if Trump did not act.
Adams resigned after this because, he said, “I didn’t feel like I was part of ‘we’” in that letter.
The rhetoric among Oath Keepers had grown “unchained,” Adams wrote in a resignation text from Dec. 23, 2020 to fellow Oath Keepers.
“That wasn’t my ideology and I didn’t want to be associated with any of that,” he reflected in court Thursday.
When assistant U.S. attorney Kathryn Racokzy asked Michael Adams who he felt was participating in “unchained rhetoric,” Adams said it was Rhodes and many others.
But, he said, he didn’t want to single Rhodes out in that text because he didn’t want to be “confrontational.”
Adams also explained in his resignation missive that he was concerned about the security and stability of his own work outside of the Oath Keepers given the heated language that had only continued to grow from just after the election.
He had three business licenses to lose if they got into any sort of trouble, he said.
Rhodes accepted his resignation succinctly over text, writing, “No sweat brother, I understand.”
Then Rhodes asked him what teleconference company he used because he was eager to set up a call with members by himself.