San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
OATH KEEPERS TRIAL COULD REVEAL NEW INFO ABOUT JAN. 6 PLOTTING
Five face trial this week on seditious conspiracy charges
Five members of the Oath Keepers group, including leader Stewart Rhodes, face trial for seditious conspiracy this week, in which U.S. prosecutors will try to convince jurors that Rhodes’ call for an armed “civil war” to keep Donald Trump in power on Jan. 6, 2021, was literal — and criminal.
Starting with jury selection Tuesday and opening statements as early as Thursday, Rhodes’ trial could reveal new information about the quest to subvert the 2020 presidential election results, as prosecutors continue to probe Trump’s conduct and that of his inner circle.
Prosecutors’ challenge will be to prove that Rhodes, one of the most visible figures of the far-right anti-government movement, and his group intentionally conspired to use force to prevent Joe Biden’s swearing-in. Whether the government tips its hand in court about the Oath Keepers’ ties to other political figures, the trial is an important step in the wider probe, analysts said.
Investigators continue to ask cooperating members of the Oath Keepers who have pleaded guilty about their knowledge of any coordination with others, according to defense attorneys. And they would welcome cooperation from those on trial, even if it came after convictions and the prospect of prison, former prosecutors said.
“I don’t think that the investigation is by any means over,” said Barbara L. Mcquade, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at the University of Michigan. “I think they may have important lines of investigation, and we just don’t know it yet . ... and it will take many more months before they feel they have tapped all those veins of information.”
Prosecutors plan to call as many as 40 witnesses over a projected five-week trial, draw from 800 statements by those charged and summarize tens of thousands of messages, hundreds of hours of video footage and hundreds of phone, location and financial records, according to pretrial proceedings. Three Oath Keepers members have pleaded guilty to the seditious conspiracy charge and are among more than a dozen potential informants in the case, according to government filings.
In previous court proceedings, Rhodes and his co-defendants have said their actions were defensive, taken in anticipation of what they believed would be a lawful order from Trump deputizing militias under the Insurrection Act to stop Biden from becoming president. They are prepared to argue they relied on advice from their attorney, Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye Sorelle, to delete their communications when Trump did not act.
“What the Government contends was a conspiracy to oppose United States laws was actually lobbying and preparation for the President to utilize a United States law to take lawful action,” Rhodes attorneys Phillip A. Linder and James Lee Bright argued.
Prosecutors said the Oath Keepers were using the Insurrection Act as legal cover for actions they were prepared to and did take, regardless of what Trump did. And even if those on trial sincerely believed Trump could have invoked the act, he never did, and lacked the authority to authorize a conspiracy to attack Congress or the presidential transition, prosecutors said.
A federal defender for Sorelle, who has been charged separately in the attack and pleaded not guilty, did not respond to a request for comment.
The trial also poses a test for the Justice Department as it confronts rising domestic extremism and politically motivated violence. Convictions for seditious conspiracy would deliver a public condemnation of political violence and could mark the end of the Oath Keepers as an organization, if not as a movement, extremism experts said. According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, about 35 percent of the more than 860 people federally charged in the Capitol riot were associated with extremist groups or conspiratorial movements.
The trial is the first of three seditious conspiracy trials set this fall accusing members of the Oath Keepers and a second far-right group, the Proud Boys, of plotting to use force to oppose the lawful transition of power by attacking Congress as it met to confirm President Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The Oath Keepers group came in combat-style tactical gear with an “arsenal” of weapons staged at nearby hotels, prosecutors have said. The Oath Keepers on trial are not charged with assaulting police, though the indictment describes them as joining mobs that fought with law enforcement.