San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
OATH KEEPERS CHIEF SENT MESSAGE TO PROUD BOYS
Testimony reveals communication during Capitol riot
Fifteen minutes after rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol building’s west side on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court testimony, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes sent a brief message to an encrypted chat group that included Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio.
“Back door of the Capitol,” Rhodes wrote.
He then called Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs, who immediately began leading a group toward the doors on the Capitol’s east side.
The third week of the government’s case in the seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes, Meggs and three other associates culminated in a minute-by-minute account of the Oath Keepers’ actions on Jan. 6 that prosecutors say shows how the group’s leaders plotted “rebellion” beforehand, green-lit violence while at the Capitol and appeared to coordinate their actions with other figures pushing to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Whitney Drew, a former FBI counterterrorism special agent with experience in Army intelligence, testified as prosecutors deployed audio, video and computer animations to give jurors an immersive path through the defendants’ actions that day.
Prosecutors mined material from Kellye Sorelle, described in court as both an Oath Keepers attorney and Rhodes’ girlfriend. Sorelle, who was recently charged with obstructing the vote count, started a four-minutelong Facebook livestream at the east side of the Capitol at 2:12 p.m. just as a crowd began moving up the steps. Proud Boys simultaneously broke into the building on the west side, according to court records, and some moved to the east.
“This is what happens when the people are pissed and when they rise up,” Sorelle told followers in a video played for jurors. “That’s how you take your government back. You literally take it back.”
One minute after Sorelle’s video ended, a group of Oath Keepers led by Meggs arrived near where Sorelle was standing, Drew testified. Rhodes was also approaching, after telling an encrypted Oath Keepers leadership chat that it was Trump supporters, not leftist agitators, responsible for the action. He likened the crowd of “pissed off patriots” to “the Sons of Liberty,” American colonists who carried out the Boston Tea Party.
At 2:28 p.m., Rhodes wrote, “Back door of the Capitol,” and sent it to an encrypted chat group that included Tarrio, Trump confidant Roger Stone, Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander and right-wing talk show host Alex Jones, according to prosecutors. Drew did not elaborate on that connection, but prosecutors have repeatedly highlighted Rhodes’ messages to the “Friends of Stone” chat group, which was also an interest of the House committee investigating Jan. 6. By the time Rhodes had sent that message, Proud Boys had already made their way from the west front of the Capitol to the east, both inside and outside the building, according to court records.
Drew also showed jurors new messages predating Jan. 6 involving Rhodes, Sorelle and other Oath Keepers in which Rhodes explicitly called for violence to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. Rhodes has argued those plans were only in preparation for the possibility that President Trump would deputize his group as a legal militia under the Insurrection Act. But in a Dec. 10 text message, Rhodes said that if Trump did not act, “we will have to rise up in insurrection (rebellion).”
Green and Sorelle have pleaded not guilty; Alexander, Jones and Stone are not charged with any crimes.