Prosecutors are expected to call fresh witnesses today in the trial of the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates over their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, deadly insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
The trial began this week for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and his band of far-right militants. It is the most serious case yet to go to trial involving the Capitol attack. New witnesses are being called today as the trial continues.
Rhodes and four others, Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, and Jessica Watkins, are accused of planning a failed “armed rebellion” to keep Donald Trump in power after he lost the election, plotting to prevent Congress from certifying the election victory of Joe Biden.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told jurors Rhodes and his associates were prepared to go to war to stop Biden from becoming president.
Over the first days of testimony, FBI Special Agent Michael Palian read aloud to the court text messages showing the defendants planning to go to Washington and preparing for violence.
The five defendants vowed to reject Joe Biden as the winner over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election in the messages.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit,” Rhodes said in one message to members of the far-right group that was shown to the court.
“Trump has one last chance, right now, to stand. But he will need us and our rifles too,” Rhodes said in another message.
The group celebrated the Capitol attack as a battle they had won and continued their plot even after Biden’s November 2020 electoral victory was certified by Congress in the early hours of 7 January, Nestler told jurors.
Rhodes and the four others are the first January 6 defendants to stand trial on the charge of seditious conspiracy, a rare civil war-era charge that calls for up to 20 years behind bars.
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