After more than a month of witness testimony and a raft of damning evidence, the Department of Justice has rested its case against the leader of the Oath Keepers, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, and four of his cohorts accused of conspiring to forcibly stop the transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021.
For five weeks, federal prosecutors provided jurors with an intimate look into the alleged plot using reams of insider Oath Keeper correspondence, eyewitness testimony, and hours of video footage that they argue, when considered all together, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Rhodes and co-defendants Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson, Thomas Caldwell, and Kelly Meggs are guilty. All have pleaded not guilty.
Only two Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty to crimes connected to the attack on the U.S. Capitol testified at the trial: Graydon Young and Jason Dolan. Neither, however, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, the top charge looming over the trial at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Seditious conspiracy carries a 20-year maximum sentence.
It was widely expected that the government would call forward Oath Keepers who have already pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy like Joshua James, William Todd Wilson, or Brian Ulrich. But those witnesses were held back. Another jury may hear from them yet: A second batch of Oath Keepers goes on trial for seditious conspiracy later this month at the same courthouse including Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel, and Edward Vallejo. The leader of the extremist group known as the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, goes on trial for sedition in December.
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Jurors saw direct evidence of Oath Keepers discussing extensive plans to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to support former President Donald Trump’s push to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
They also heard damning recordings from the day of the attack as Oath Keepers actively descended on the Capitol replete in tactical gear and then later, celebrated breaching police barriers. In addition to the group’s many encrypted texts, jurors heard a covert recording of Rhodes from less than a week after Jan. 6 where he appeared undeterred from his goal to keep now President Joe Biden—whom he repeatedly asserted was a puppet for communist China—from assuming the presidency.
FBI agents who investigated the Oath Keepers extensively and U.S. Capitol Police also testified at the trial, piecing together the picture of an armed rebellion that prosecutors say was in the works almost as soon as Trump lost the election. For Rhodes, who fancies himself a legal and constitutional scholar, Jan. 6 was a last stand of sorts, where the “fraudulent” electoral results could be quashed if no intervention from Trump or former Vice President Mike Pence ever arrived.
But as prosecutors argued for the last several weeks, the alleged plot to keep Trump in office extended well beyond Jan. 6 with Oath Keepers eyeing the inauguration of now President Joe Biden as Trump’s very last chance to invoke the Insurrection Act and raise Oath Keepers as a militia that could help him forcibly stop his removal from the White House.
Prosecutors said this plot was supported by the staging of a “quick reaction force” where on-the-ready Oath Keepers and an allegedly massive weapons arsenal were staged at a hotel in northern Virginia. This, they argue, was done to support the rebellion at a moment’s notice. One FBI agent who investigated the quick reaction force, or “QRF,” told jurors during the trial’s early phases that she believed the group hauled weapons into Virginia by the binful because they intended to “occupy” D.C. should Trump declare the Insurrection Act.
Former Oath Keeper Jason Dolan agreed, telling jurors that if Trump did” declare the Insurrection Act, we would be working alongside or with pro-government forces against what we saw as anti-government forces, or in some way or another, fighting against those anti-government forces.”
“It was a feeling that the country was slipping out of fingers,” Dolan testified on Oct. 18.
But a major hurdle for prosecutors may be the lack of explicit language directing an attack on the Capitol with the goal of stopping the count.
Graydon Young, for example, repeatedly told jurors under cross examination by defense attorneys the group didn’t receive specific instructions. Rather, he said it was “implied” what they would do on Jan. 6.
Attorneys for the Oath Keepers have seized on this as they have mounted their defense, arguing that there was no coordinated plan in place on or before Jan. 6 and that members of the group only came to D.C. to support Trump, provide security details for VIPs attending pro-Trump rallies and further, to serve as a potential “peacekeeping” force against elements they deemed dangerous including “antifa,” leftists and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Defendant Kelly Meggs, for one, maintains that he and his co-defendants entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 with the aim of assisting overrun police officers. Meggs has said too that once inside, he and his associates “helped” U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn. Dunn testified to the contrary, telling jurors that the group in no way assisted him or anyone else, for that matter. U.S. Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus corroborated Dunn’s account. U.S. Capitol Police Officer Ryan Salke also testified and told jurors of the terror he experienced on Jan. 6 as he fought off the mob for hours. Like other cops on duty that day, Dunn, Salke and Lazarus made quick calculations under immense pressure that helped preserve the lives of lawmakers, staff and journalists inside the Capitol.
RELATED STORY: Capitol Police officer tells jury of harrowing day; Oath Keeper breaks down on the stand
Before closing their case, prosecutors also showed jurors detailed graphics utilizing cell phone metadata that depictted the defendant’s movements after Jan. 6, The Justice Department argues Rhodes and fellow Oath Keepers worked to conceal their activities as they impatiently waited for the inauguration. To wit, Rhodes purchased some $17,000 in guns and other weapons related ephemera from Jan. 6 to Jan. 20, 2021 and holed himself up in an associate’s Texas home while other defendants awaited his instructions.
Though opening statements were made for most of the defendants when the trial first began, they were reserved by defendants Kenneth Harrelson and Kelly Meggs until after the government rested its case Thursday.
According to Roger Parloff, a senior editor at Lawfare who has been following the trial daily, when Harrelson’s attorney Brad Geyer delivered his opening statement Thursday, he described his client as a man who was swept up into a series of tragically unfortunate events.
Harrelson, Geyer would say, didn’t even know there was a House of Representatives or U.S. Senate.
“He didn’t know anything about the Electoral College,” Geyer said.
Harrelson thought it was a place that “politicians went to get educated or whatever,” he said.
When he went to Washington, it was because he wanted to help Oath Keepers provide security at events around the Capitol, not because he was “angry” with the results of the election or about the certification.
As for Meggs, defense attorney Stanley Woodward told jurors that his client was moved to come to Washington on Jan. 6 because he was distraught over the state of play in America. Racial justice protests that ended in violence and a “growing discord” worried him and other Oath Keepers who, Woodward said, had spent the years prior organizing hurricane assistance efforts.
The security details they aimed to provide to Trump allies like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn was the byproduct of genuine concern held for Trump’s supporters, Woodward explained.
RELATED STORY: Oath Keeper tells jury: It was ‘conquer or die’ to keep Trump in White House on Jan. 6
With the opening of its case Thursday, defense attorneys called their first witness as well: Montana Siniff.
Siniff is the fiancee of defendant Jessica Watkins and together, the two formed a militia group in Ohio.
According to WUSA9 reporter Jordan Fischer, Siniff told jurors Thursday that Watkins, a transgender woman, experienced extreme hazing during her time in the military. She was discharged from the Army in 2003. Her time in the military was marred by difficulties, Siniff said, and she sought to recreate a regimented lifestyle for herself that included being of service to others.
That was part of why the veteran formed the Ohio State Regular Militia, he said.
But like Meggs, with civil unrest escalating in 2020, the aim the “service” she wished to provide started to shift. It was a militia trip to Louisville, Kentucky during protests in response to the police killing of Breonna Taylor that proved fateful for Watkins. She and Siniff would meet Stewart Rhodes there for the first time.
Siniff did not join his betrothed when she aligned with the Oath Keepers and from the witness stand Thursday, he told the jury that he urged Watkins not to go to Washington on Jan. 6.
Siniff also told defense attorney Jonathan Crisp during questioning Thursday that Watkins did not tell him that she planned to stop the certification on Jan. 6.
At earlier points during the trial, however, jurors saw messages that seemed to undercut that claim.
Watkins appeared boastful on multiple occasions before, during and after the Capitol assault and in one exchange over the walkie-talkie app Zello, as a person in the group railed about the “tyrannical treasonous” government and the lack of “legitimate authority” it held to certify the vote that he and Watkins believed was fraudulent, Watkins said Trump had been “trying to drain the swamp with a straw.”
But the Oath Keepers, she explained, had done him one better.
“We just brought a shop vac,” she said.
Watkins, Harrelson and Meggs were among the Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol by moving up the Capitol steps in a stack formation. Once inside, prosecutors say it was Watkins who forced her way past a line of riot police protecting the Senate chamber, screaming “Push, push, push. Get in there. They can’t hold us,” as she went.
The defense will continue with its direct examination of witnesses over the next several days. Rhodes is expected to testify soon as well. He could be on the stand on Friday morning but with an abbreviated Friday court schedule—proceedings will end at 11 a.m. ET—he could be held off until Monday.