UPDATE: Thursday, Nov 10, 2022 · 11:02:55 AM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman
A slight tweak to the very last part of this article: there will be no Daily Kos live blog on Nov. 10 beginning at 9:30 a.m.
Judge Mehta will meet with attorneys on Nov. 10 to discuss jury instructions only since there was a change to witness schedules. The trial resumes Monday, Nov. 14. I will be there for Daily Kos.
On Wednesday, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers group, rested his case in the historic seditious conspiracy trial that has played out in Washington, D.C., for weeks.
By resting his case, Rhodes will present no further evidence on his own behalf and will call no further witnesses. But the road to the jury’s verdict does not end here for co-defendants Jessica Watkins, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, and Thomas Caldwell. They will continue to make their cases in court before the Justice Department finally launches its rebuttal and closing arguments are finally presented.
The decision by Rhodes to rest comes just a few days after he took the witness stand. Rhodes’ testimony under direct examination by his own attorneys went smoothly, with the self-proclaimed history and legal buff eager to regale jurors with his musings on the Constitution, U.S. legal doctrine, and the results of the 2020 election that he still deems “unconstitutional.” These moments were wedged cleanly between his repeated assertions that neither he nor any other Oath Keeper on trial conspired to stop the transfer of power on Jan. 6.
But when under cross-examination by federal prosecutors, his confidence gave way to a simmering impatience. Amid the parading of his ego—he “never needed a bodyguard,” he knows karate and in the bedroom, he’s the ‘dominant’ type—Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy drilled down on discrepancies between his words and his alleged actions.
Campaign Action
Before Rhodes rested his case Wednesday, jurors heard testimony from Michael Greene, also known as Michael Simmons. In group texts with Oath Keepers, Greene was known as “Whip” or “Whiplash.” According to prosecutors, Greene was tapped by Rhodes to lead operations for the group’s “mission” in D.C. after another Oath Keeper, Donald Siekerman, fell ill with COVID-19. Greene, a onetime contractor for Blackwater, was also tapped to serve as a bodyguard to Trump ally Roger Stone on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6.
Greene, a 39-year-old Black man from Indianapolis, Indiana, was indicted in June alongside other Oath Keepers for conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding as well as four other charges tied to his alleged conduct on Jan. 6.
But Greene risked taking the stand for Rhodes, a man he described on Wednesday as “pretty cool” though admittedly, he said, not someone he would consider a close friend.
Greene testified that when he first learned of the Oath Keepers, he was turned off by the group. He saw members—identifiable by their logo-stamped garb—at a gun show standing around with “known white supremacists,” he said. But when Greene learned from his friend Greg McWhirter that he was an Oath Keeper, it put him at ease.
Greene once told the outlet Mother Jones that Rhodes cast out racists from the ranks of the Oath Keepers. It was that outlet that first confirmed Greene was handpicked as operations leader by Rhodes.
McWhirter, also a Black man, was once the group’s vice president. McWhirter was expected to testify for the defense this week but a medical emergency precluded his appearance. After the trial hiccup, he was expected to appear remotely but before he got the chance to testify, McWhirter was unmasked as a confidential informant to the FBI.
The New York Times reported the detail about McWhirter on Tuesday, citing sources familiar. But then, the Justice Department effectively confirmed the report in a motion it published to the public docket it meant to keep under seal. The motion asked presiding U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to probe the defense attorneys about the origins of the leak, citing McWhirter’s “tremendous anxiety” over his exposure.
Greene didn’t speak much about McWhirter on Wednesday beyond describing his initial introduction to the Oath Keepers. While he described McWhirter as a “friend,” Greene would later describe the “friendship” in a more chilly way saying he had “maybe two” conversations with McWhirter and Rhodes from 2017 through the fall of 2020. One of their last conversations, Greene said, pertained to a disagreement over a “personal security detail” issue.
Greene went to Louisville, Kentucky, at Rhodes’ request in the fall of 2020. He was hired by the group to conduct a “security assessment” for a local business as civil unrest exploded over the police killing of Breonna Taylor.
Greene said several times from the stand that he was not a member of the Oath Keepers and bristled at the suggestion by the Justice Department that he was a “mercenary” during his time with Blackwater.
Prosecutors, however, showed Greene pictures and video of himself appearing in an Oath Keepers propaganda video donning the group’s logo on his vest.
Like Rhodes, Greene pinned blame for riots in 2020 squarely on “antifa” and “BLM,” or the Black Lives Matter movement.
“There were riots going on all over the country. It was no big deal for me to go in and do a security assessment,” the former Blackwater contractor said. (Blackwater has changed names twice: first to Academi and then to Contellis.)
When defense attorney Philip Linder asked Greene how he felt about groups like Black Lives Matter, he replied bluntly: “I didn’t give a damn one way or another. I was just doing a job,”
After Louisville, Rhodes called on Greene to protect Kellye SoRelle, Rhodes’s girlfriend and self-proclaimed attorney to the Oath Keepers, at a ‘‘Stop the Steal’ event in Georgia hosted by right-wing conspiracy theorist Ali Alexander. SoRelle was there to talk about “election fraud” she claimed to have witnessed and according to Greene, she feared she would be attacked by antifa there, too.
Greene later joined Oath Keepers for events like the Million MAGA March in D.C. in Nov. 2020 and then again at the Jericho March that December. His final event was Jan. 6.
Under cross-examination, prosecutors probed Greene about the “quick reaction force” Oath Keepers established for the events. Rhodes wanted the “QRF” in November 2020 because he feared former President Donald Trump would be forcibly removed from the White House by “antifa.”
“I told Stewart, that’s crazy, nobody is going to storm the White House, they have a fucking arsenal. They’ll slaughter everybody,” he said.
But Rhodes wanted it anyway.
Rhodes told the jury this week that he had no part in the QRF that was stationed at a hotel in northern Virginia for Jan. 6. Oath Keeper Terry Cummings told prosecutors at the start of the trial, the QRF in Virginia contained more guns in one place than any he had seen since leaving the military.
Texts extracted from Oath Keeper devices, however, show Rhodes and co-defendant Kelly Meggs discussing the QRF. On Jan. 5, for example, prosecutors found a text where Meggs tells Rhodes “we are just outside of town, unloading at the QRF.”
“See you soon,” Rhodes replied.
Greene told jurors too that he didn’t know Meggs got the rooms with North Carolina Oath Keeper leader Paul Stamey. When he learned Arizona Oath Keeper Ed Vallejo was at the hotel in Arlington, Virginia, Rhodes said, he didn’t realize Vallejo considered it a QRF.
On Wednesday, Greene testified: “We didn’t have a plan for the QRF” on Jan. 6.
“Sir, you keep saying ‘we’ but I’m asking you, Michael Greene, you were not aware of a QRF? You didn’t know Ed Vallejo was sitting in a hotel waiting with all these guns?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler asked.
“No,” Greene said.
Nestler seized promptly on conflicting details between Greene’s testimony and the exhibits in evidence, namely text messages and pictures extracted from his device by the FBI after his arrest.
In one message sent to Greene during the early morning of Jan. 6, a person he could not identify Wednesday told Greene he was referred to him. At 1:41 p.m., after rioters had already breached barricades at the Capitol and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a curfew, the person messaged Greene again.
“Amazing day,” they wrote.
A minute later, Greene replied: “Storming the Capitol.”
“Amazing because people were storming the Capitol?” Nestler asked.
Greene said the response was merely him informing the person that people were storming the building, generally.
Nestler then pulled up a text sent by Greene to a person with a phone number featuring a Detroit, Michigan area code. Greene said he did not recognize the number or recall who he was speaking to when he wrote: “were storming the capitol.” [original]
Prosecutors and FBI agents tasked to work the case have said that “were” was a typo that Greene made for the phrase “we’re” or “we are” at least six times on Jan. 6.
On Wednesday, Greene deflected, saying that he received thousands of texts messages on Signal that he never saw. Like Rhodes, Greene testified that the cell phone connection around the Capitol on Jan. 6 was spotty and often failed to connect phone calls. Signal was problematic too, he testified.
This message to the person in Detroit must have been a mistake, or something that got crossed on Signal, he said.
But, Nestler told him, this message wasn’t found on his phone. It was extracted from another person’s device. And it wasn’t a Signal message. It was a T-Mobile-based text. And T-Mobile captured all network text messages and provided them to the FBI.
On Jan. 6 at 2:31 PM, Greene called Rhodes, phone record metadata shows. The call lasted 40 seconds. Before Nestler even prompted him, Greene volunteered that he couldn’t say whether that phone call was actually connected. He made maybe 20 or 30 attempts to call Rhodes, he testified.
“I didn’t ask you whether they were connected,” Nestler said.
Greene said it might have gone to voicemail or didn’t connect, he wasn’t sure.
After 40 seconds, Meggs called Rhodes moments later. Phone records show Rhodes then merged the call with Greene to make a three-way conference call. When Nestler asked if the three men were talking just moments before Meggs proceeded to enter the Capitol in a stack formation with fellow Oath Keepers, Greene spoke fast.
“It could have been him. I’m talking to Rhodes, Meggs calls and Rhodes clicks over, I don’t know about a merged call. I don’t remember being on a merged call with Meggs and Rhodes, ever on the 6th or it could have been—“ he said before Nestler cut in.
“You have a lot of theories about these calls,” the prosecutor quipped.
At 2:33 PM, 90 seconds after Rhodes merged the call, Meggs hopped off, Nestler said.
Evidence shows Greene and Rhodes stayed on the line for over three minutes once Meggs hung up.
“It’s an awfully long time to stay on the phone without talking,” Nestler said.
Jurors will receive instructions that reminds them: “the government is not required to show that two or more people sat around a table and entered into a solemn pact, orally or in writing, stating they had formed a conspiracy to violate the law and spelling out all the details.”
Whether the conspiracy is implied or explicit, is no matter. It is rare that a conspiracy can be proven by an explicit agreement, the jury instructions note.
The defense has nonetheless made a point to elicit testimony from their witnesses, including Greene, stating that no one ever received direct orders from Rhodes to stop the transfer of power on Jan. 6.
When defense attorney James Lee Bright asked Greene, who deployed for a year to Iraq with the U.S. military, whether he ever went off on any mission with an “implict plan” alone, Greene said no.
That, he said, would be stupid.
“Nothing is implied in the military. Everything has a plan in the military,” he said, adding a moment later that there was never any implicit plan.
After Rhodes rested, Meggs’ defense attorney Stanley Woodward called witness Stephen Brown to the stand. Brown, the owner of an event planning company known as Resource Group, was hired by Ali Alexander to help Alexander plan his “One Nation Under God” rally. The name of the rally, according to ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer Kimberly Fletcher, was an alias for ‘Stop the Steal’ because Alexander didn’t think the permit would be granted by U.S. Capitol Police otherwise.
The seditious conspiracy trial reached a milestone with the resting of Rhodes’ case but Woodward announced Wednesday that he still needs to call Oath Keeper Mike Adams for testimony as well as Andrew Smrecek, the owner of a shooting range. A few others may be called, Lawfare reported. It is not yet clear whether Meggs will testify but Woodward said he expects their case in chief will be done by Monday.
Judge Mehta asked Brad Geyer, the defense attorney for Kenneth Harrelson, to make his case on Monday as well. Jessica Watkins’ attorney Jonathan Crisp must be ready by Nov. 15 and Thomas Caldwell must be ready to present his case on Nov. 16. There will be a rebuttal, Nestler said but he expects it to be short.
Mehta predicted closing arguments would take up to two days and then, the case would be handed off to jurors before Thanksgiving on Nov. 24. That would mean jurors would be asked to return on Nov. 28.
The Daily Kos live blog resumes tomorrow at 9:30 AM. If you want even more detail, check out the mega-thread on Twitter.