Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, not guilty of conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging his duties, and guilty of tampering with documents.
Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging his duties, and tampering with documents. Meggs was found not guilty of the destruction of government property.
Ohio Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins, just one of the Oath Keepers who breached the U.S. Capitol in an organized stack, was found not of guilty seditious conspiracy but was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding. She was also found guilty of conspiring to prevent officers from discharging their duties, and civil disorder. Those two verdicts were expected after Watkins admitted to civil disorder from the witness stand at trial. On the destruction of government property charge, she was found not guilty.
Thomas Caldwell, a former Naval commander—who prosecutors said coordinated the groups’ efforts to establish a heavily-armed quick reaction force, or QRF, to support Oath Keepers on the ground at the Capitol—was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, not guilty of conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging his duties, but guilty on two charges: tampering with documents and obstruction of an official proceeding.
Kenneth Harrelson, another Oath Keepers leader from Florida who joined the stack breaching the Capitol, was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and not guilty of destruction of property. He was, however, found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging his duties.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes was arrested on Jan. 13, a little more than a year from the day that he stood outside of the U.S. Capitol, stalking from side to side of the building as the pro-Trump mob swelled and members of the group he founded in 2009 stormed the building with the aim of stopping the certification of the 2020 election.
At trial, Rhodes denied having a specific plan in place for Jan. 6, citing the lack of a written or express agreement to halt the certification. This point made up the lion’s share of the defense, and it was often that Oath Keepers would claim they were simply “swept up” by a jostling, fast-moving crowd.
Even from the witness stand, Oath Keepers who had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, like Jason Dolan and Graydon Young, testified that there was never an explicit plan about using force to stop Congress.
It was, however, “implied,” Young said.
And this, according to prosecutors, is what mattered to secure the seditious conspiracy convictions.
An explicit agreement was never required for the jury to find the defendants guilty of seditious conspiracy. An implied agreement was indicated in myriad Oath Keepers texts, video, and audio recordings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler said during the government’s final rebuttal on Nov. 21.
Rhodes alone published two open letters to former President Donald Trump in December 2020, urging him to invoke the Insurrection Act so that Oath Keepers could be called up to stop what Rhodes believed was a “deep state” coup aimed at removing Trump from the White House despite his popular and electoral defeat—the long and now widely debunked “Big Lie”—to now-President Joe Biden.
If Trump didn’t act, Rhodes wrote, the Oath Keepers would be forced to. A civil war would be inevitable.
”You must act NOW as a wartime President, pursuant to your oath to defend the Constitution, which is very similar to the oath all of us veterans swore. We are already in a fight. It’s better to wage it with you as Commander-in-Chief than to have you comply with a fraudulent election, leave office, and leave the White House in the hands of illegitimate usurpers and Chinese puppets,” Rhodes wrote in an open letter to Trump published on the Oath Keepers website on Dec. 14.
“Do NOT concede, and do NOT wait until Jan. 20, 2021. Strike now. If you fail to act while you are still in office, we the people will have to fight a bloody civil war and revolution against these two illegitimate Communist China puppets, and their illegitimate regime, with all of the powers of the deep state behind them, with nominal command of all the might of our armed forces (though we fully expect many units or entire branches to refuse their orders and to fight against them) and with their foreign allies also joining to assist in the impression of American patriots.” [Emphasis original]
The seditious missives didn’t stop there.
In a second open letter—published four days after Trump tweeted an invitation to the “big protest in D.C.” on Jan. 6—Rhodes’ frustration reached a fever pitch as he again urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.
When he testified before the jury, Rhodes was unrepentant in his view that the 2020 election was “unconstitutional,” pointing to COVID-19 protocols implemented in battleground states during the pandemic. Under cross-examination from Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy, he also bizarrely denied his letters were intended to convince Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and use a militia of Oath Keepers and other allies to overturn the election results.
He admitted to urging his followers to oppose the results but then denied urging them to use force. Text messages seized off of his device, however, showed Rhodes explicitly stating: “The answer must be to refuse to accept, acknowledge or respect or obey any of these imposters or their pretend legislation and get gear squared away and ready to fight,” and, “Trump has one last chance right now to stand but he will need us and our rifles too.”
During the trial, any argument by the defense that the Oath Keepers failed to participate in a seditious conspiracy simply because there was not a definitive, spelled-out plan amounted to a “colossal waste of time,” Nestler said.
“Let me be clear on behalf of the United States: We do not allege a specific plan to storm the Capitol. Never have. Aren’t now. We don’t have to prove a plan,” he said.
Jurors only needed to find evidence of a mutual understanding. Conspirators rarely put their plans in writing—a feature U.S. criminal law healthily accounts for. No oral agreement was required, nor was there a requirement that the government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that all conspirators were aware of every detail of a conspiracy, or even agreed to the means of the conspiracy.
The coordination to halt the nation’s transfer of presidential power played out over phone calls and texts among Rhodes and several of the group’s senior-most leaders in various states, including his co-defendant Kelly Meggs of Florida.
Evidence amassed by prosecutors showed Meggs not only reserved a hotel in November 2020 for a weapons training course but was joined in that reservation by fellow Oath Keepers Jeremy Brown and Joseph Hackett. Brown brought an RV to the Washington, D.C., area on Jan. 6, allegedly stuffed with explosives. He left the vehicle in College Park, Maryland, roughly a half hour’s commute without traffic from D.C. Brown has not yet gone to trial; an update in his case is expected before Dec. 19.
Hackett, like Meggs, was one of the Oath Keepers who stormed the Capitol in a stack formation on Jan. 6. He goes on trial for seditious conspiracy starting Dec. 5, along with Oath Keepers Roberto Minuta, David Moerschel, and Ed Vallejo. All were charged alongside Rhodes, but due to the limited space available to accommodate the large number of defendants and their attorneys, plus the government’s attorneys at the federal courthouse, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta split the defendants into two groups.
This story is developing.
