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Prosecutors rest in Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers members : NPR


Stewart Rhodes of the Oath-Keepers speaks outside the White House in 2017. He and four other team members are being tried on charges including ambitious conspiracy, related to the Electrical attack. Capitol.

Susan Walsh / AP


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Susan Walsh / AP


Stewart Rhodes of the Oath-Keepers speaks outside the White House in 2017. He and four other team members are being tried on charges including ambitious conspiracy, related to the Electrical attack. Capitol.

Susan Walsh / AP

After a month of testimony, the government reopened its case on Thursday in ambitious plot test against Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes and four other members of the far-right group.

The trial is the biggest yet to emerge from the Justice Department’s rife investigation into the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. Rhodes and the other defendants are accused of conspiring to use force to prevent Joe Biden from taking office.

The jury heard the testimony of more than two dozen witnesses, including FBI agents, the US Capitol police, the former Oath Keeper, as well as two members of the group who stormed the Capitol and later pleaded guilty. conspiracy.

The jurors were also shown Signal chats, Facebook messages and other communications sent by the defendants, as well as videos and audio recordings showing what the defendants were saying and doing first. January 6, on that very day and after. afterward.

Rhodes and his alleged accomplices – Jessica Watkins, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell – were charged with conspiracy, obstruction and other charges related to January 6.

Watkins, Meggs, and Harrelson put on tactical gear and began walking up the steps of the Capitol that day and into the building. Rhodes and Caldwell were on Capitol grounds, but not in the complex.

As part of the alleged conspiracy, prosecutors presented evidence that the Oath Keepers stored firearms at a Virginia hotel just outside of Washington, D.C., for quick response forces. Enter the city on January 6, if necessary.

Prosecutors say the conspiracy did not end on January 6, but instead continued through Biden’s inauguration. The government used one of its last witnesses to present key evidence on that front.

Prosecutors named Jason Alpers, a military veteran now working as a software developer in Texas, testified on Wednesday that a few days after the Capitol attack, he met with Rhodes and several People keep another oath in the parking lot of an electronics store in the Dallas area.

Rhodes wanted to send a message to then-President Donald Trump, which was something Alpers said he would be able to do “indirectly.” Alpers testified that he secretly taped the meeting because he wanted to make sure there was an accurate record of what was supposed to be passed on to the president.

Alpers said that during the meeting Rhodes typed on Alpers’ cell phone a message to Trump in which Rhodes urged Trump to invoke the Resurrection Act to stay in power.

“If you don’t, then Biden/Kamala will transfer all that power to you, your family, and all of us. You and your family will be jailed and killed,” Rhodes wrote in the message. presented before the jury. . “And we veterans will die fighting on American soil, fighting against the traitors to whom YOU have transferred all the powers of the President to.”

Rhodes urged Trump to be “the savior of the Republic, not a man who surrendered it to traitors and deadly enemies who then enslaved and murdered millions American.”

Prosecutors also played video clips of the Alpers meeting. In one excerpt, Rhodes can be heard saying: “If he didn’t do the right thing and he was going to let himself be illegally removed, then we should have brought rifles. We could have fix it right then. I” d hung f****** Pelosi from the lamppost. “

In the stands, Alpers told jurors he disagreed with what Rhodes said or his message.

Alpers testified: “Ask for civil war to take place on American soil and understanding, as a man who has gone to war, that means blood will be spilled on the streets where your family lives,” Alpers testified. “That’s when I stepped back and was questioning whether pushing this on President Trump was in the best interest.”

In the end, Alpers didn’t pass the message on to Trump. Instead, he provided the recording of the meeting as well as the note that Rhodes had written to the FBI.

Next: defense

In the government’s cross-examination of witnesses, defense attorneys were able to score several points.

Interrogated, FBI agents testified that in the thousands of messages sent by the defendants, they did not find any specific plan – or order – to attack the Capitol. Two Oath Keeper cooperating witnesses also said there were no specific plans to do so, although they testified that they understood they wanted to stop Congress on January 6.

They have suggested that all chatter in texts and texts is rhetoric, but mostly just heated chatter.

Now that the government has rested, the defendants will have the opportunity to bring a case of their own.

The length of defense for all five defendants is unknown, but one thing is clear: Stewart Rhodes is expected to testify on his own behalf.

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