Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted Tuesday of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win, handing the U.S. Justice Department a serious victory in its large prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault.
A Washington, D.C., jury discovered Rhodes responsible of sedition after three days of deliberations within the almost two-month-long trial that showcased the far-right extremist group’s efforts to maintain Republican Donald Trump within the White House in any respect prices.
The hardly ever used, Civil War-era cost requires as much as 20 years behind bars.
Rhodes didn’t go contained in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, however was accused of main a plot that started shortly after the 2020 election to wage an armed rebel to cease the switch of presidential energy.
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Through recordings and encrypted messages, jurors heard how Rhodes rallied his followers to battle to maintain Trump in workplace, warned of a attainable “bloody” civil conflict and expressed remorse that the Oath Keepers didn’t deliver rifles to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In a unprecedented transfer, Rhodes and two different defendants took the stand of their protection, opening themselves as much as intense questioning from prosecutors. Rhodes instructed jurors there was no plan to assault the Capitol and insisted that his followers who went contained in the constructing went rouge.
On trial alongside Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, had been Kelly Meggs, chief of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, one other Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired Navy intelligence officer from Virginia; and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group.
