Oath Keepers leader: No plan to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes told jurors on Monday there was no plan for his band of extremists to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as he tries to clear his name in his seditious conspiracy trial.

Taking the stand in his defense for a second day, Rhodes testified that he had no idea that his followers were going to join the proTrump mob to storm the Capitol and that he was upset after he found out that some did.

Rhodes said he believed it was stupid for any Oath Keepers to go into the Capitol. He insisted that was not their “mission.”

“There was no plan to enter the building for any purpose,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes is on trial with four others for what prosecutors have alleged was a plan to stage an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power from Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors have tried to show that for the Oath Keepers, then riot was not a spur-of-themoment protest but part of a serious, weekslong plot.

Rhodes' defense is focused largely on his the idea that his rhetoric was aimed at convincing Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which gives the president wide discretion to decide when military force is necessary and what qualifies as military force. Rhodes told jurors he believed it would have been legal for Trump to invoke that act and call up a militia in response to what he believed was an “unconstitutional” and “invalid” election.

“All of my effort was on what Trump could do,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes did not make clear what he would have wanted the militia to do after being called up by Trump. But he said disrupting the certification of the vote was not one of his goals and he expected that it would be certified.

Prosecutors say Rhodes' own words show that he was using the Insurrection Act as legal cover and that he was going to act no matter what Trump did. When they get a chance to question Rhodes this week, they are likely to highlight messages such as one Rhodes sent in December 2020 in which he said Trump “needs to know that if he fails to act, then we will.