Prosecutor: Oath Keepers saw Jan. 6 as ‘first battle’

WASHINGTON — Four Oath Keepers charged with plotting to stop the transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden accepted an “invitation to sedition” issued by the farright extremist group’s founder, a federal prosecutor said Monday at the start of a second trial for group leaders and members.

Jurors heard opening statements two weeks after a different jury convicted Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy and other charges stemming from a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Rhodes is jailed awaiting sentencing and wasn’t in court on Monday, but a prosecutor repeatedly brought up his name. Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Edwards said Rhodes issued a “call to action” before his followers carried out a violent plot to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory.

“This was an invitation to sedition,” the prosecutor said.

The defendants in the latest trial are Joseph Hackett of Sarasota, Fla.; Roberto Minuta of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel of Punta Gorda, Fla.; and Edward Vallejo of Phoenix. They are charged with several other felonies in addition to seditious conspiracy. Their lawyers’ opening statements often echoed arguments that Oath Keepers’ attorneys made at the first trial. In particular, they said group members never had a plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. Moerschel’s attorney, Scott Weinberg, said many Oath Keepers members were elderly, out-of-shape men who were “playing military” and prone to bluster in their online chats.

“These gentlemen used Twitter fingers, not trigger fingers,” Weinberg told jurors, paraphrasing lyrics by the Canadian rapper Drake.

Jurors are expected to hear testimony from prosecutors’ first witness on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Oath Keepers members stashed guns at a hotel in Virginia for a “quick reaction force” that could shuttle weapons into Washington, D.C., on Rhodes’ order. On Jan. 6, two groups of Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol after thousands of other rioters breached the building. The guns stashed at the hotel were never deployed. Rhodes and other Oath Keepers viewed the Jan. 6 attack as the “street fighting phase” and “just the first battle in a war,” Edwards said.