A member of the far-right Oath Keepers testified that he wanted lawmakers to “be afraid” of certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Jason Dolan, a Florida member of Oath Keepers and a retired Marine, said he was ready to use violence to stop Congress from certifying the election defeat of former president Donald Trump.
Dolan pleaded guilty last year for taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, violent insurrection on the Capitol.
He testified on Tuesday at the criminal trial of the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, as well as four associates. The five members of the group face charges of seditious conspiracy for their role in the Capitol assault.
Dolan testified that he joined the Oath Keepers out of frustration over Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.
He said he grew willing to “fight” against what he saw as an “illegitimate” government as he drank alcohol and texted with group members for hours every night.
“A lot of us were prepared, I was prepared to stop the certification process one way or the other,” Dolan said.
Dolan stormed the Capitol with several other members of Oath Keepers, and loudly chanted “treason” in hopes Congress would “be afraid of me.” The point of making Congress afraid was to stop the certification process of Biden.
Members of the Oath Keepers were among the thousands of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol.
Dolan testified that he brought his assault-style rifle and a pistol with him from Florida, and stashed them in a hotel in Virginia. Prosecutors say the group planned a “quick reaction force” of armed members who waited at a hotel in northern Virginia with a stash of firearms they could bring to the Capitol if called upon.
Rhodes and his four co-defendants are charged with seditious conspiracy. This is a rarely prosecuted crime under a statute dating to the Civil War era defined as attempting “to overthrow, put down or to destroy by force the government of the United States.”
Dolan pleaded guilty in September 2021 to conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding and agreed to cooperate with the government in the hope of getting a reduced sentence.
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