A United States jury found the founder of the far-right group Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes guilty of conspiracy to commit sedition, for the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
A US federal jury found guilty Tuesday of conspiracy to committing sedition to the founder of the far-right group Oath Keepers (Oath Keepers), Stewart Rhodes, for his role in the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol.
The twelve jurors also found Kelly Meggs, another member of the group, guilty of the same charge, while they acquitted the other three Oath Keepers members on trial: Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell.
The trial, which began on October 3 in Washington, has settled the role played by these five Oath Keepers militants when trying to forcibly stop the ratification process in Congress of Joe Biden’s electoral victory in the 2020 presidential election, in which the Democrat wrested the Presidency from Republican Donald Trump.
During the trial, the Prosecutor’s Office accused them of having kept weapons, ammunition and hand grenades in a hotel near the US capital with the aim of preventing several congressmen from certifying the elections.
During the assault on the Capitol, which left five dead and more than 140 officers injured, Rhodes remained outside the building supervising the operation, while Meggs led a group of 14 people to the interior of the building, where they divided into two subgroups of seven, one directed to the Senate and the other to the House of Representatives.
Rhodes’ defense, for its part, tried to convince the jury that the armed groups of Oath Keepers Those stationed in hotels around Washington did not intend to prevent Biden’s confirmation, but rather to “react” should Trump ask them to intervene.
That request that, according to the far-right organization, the president might have made by virtue of a rule of 1807 that allows the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces to ask citizen paramilitary groups to enforce the law, would have been intended to protect characters ” high level” who attended the pro-Trump demonstration that day in front of the Capitol.
The prosecution, however, considered that the members of the group planned to use force to prevent Biden’s confirmation regardless of what Trump said.
The Oath Keepers are a loosely organized organization linked to citizen militias that, while accepting anyone as a member, focuses its recruitment efforts on ex-military, police and first responders.