Stewart Rhodes trial: Oath Keepers leader’s case for seditious conspiracy on Jan 6 underway

Stewart Rhodes and four other defendants face seditious conspiracy charges tied to the January 6 attack.

The other alleged members of the Oath Keepers include Thomas Caldwell, a retired US Navy lieutenant commander.

Others include Kelly Meggs, who led the Oath Keepers chapter in Florida, and Florida member Kenneth Harrelson.

Jessica Watkins of Ohio also is included among defendants.

While jury selection is underway in the Oath Keepers case, the federal courthouse in Washington also is holding other unrelated hearings related to January 6 defendants – one day before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack holds a potentially final public hearing at the Capitol.

Here is what to expact during tomorrow’s hearing:

The mother of Ashli Babbitt – who was fatally shot by Capitol police officer just outside the House chamber on January 6 – was in the courtroom on Tuesday,

From reporter Brandi Buchman, who is in the courtroom: “When a prospective Black juror told the judge that he questioned whether the same wouldve happened on Jan 6 if rioters were all Black, she left in a bit of a huff, saying under her mask ‘Oh, well!’”

The Oath Keepers’ counsel Kellye SoRelle was arrested in Texas on 31 August and charged in four courts connected to the attack on the US Capitol.

A federal indictment charged her with obstruction of an official proceeding and obstruction of justice, as well as conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

Prosecutors allege Ms SoRelle “did corruptly persuade and attempt to corruptly persuade other persons with intent to cause and induce such persons” to “withhold records, documents and other objects” during a joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election.

In a filing earlier this month, an attorney for Stewart Rhodes said her arrest “represents a monumental change in how Rhodes expected to defend himself at trial”.

In a separate case not far from the Oath Keepers trial, former Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, who was injured by rioters during the Capitol attack, told a courtroom that his injuries cost him his career.

Defendant Kyle Young is among four people accused of assaulting the officer in the middle of the mob on 6 January, 2021.

He allegedly restrained Mr Fanone while he was Tased and beaten. His 16-year-old son had joined him at the Capitol that day. He has pleaded guilty.

“This is not my first rodeo,” Mr Fanone said during a witness impact statement. “But this case is unique. The assault on me by Mr Young cost me my career, it cost me my faith in law enforcement and many of the institutions I dedicated two decades of my life to serving.”

Mr Young called him a “piece of s***”.

He also apologised to the officer and said he would “accept” his punishment.

The Justice Department is seeking a sentence of 86 months in prison.

Kyle Young, among four people accused of assaulting Metropolitian Police Officer Michael Fanone in the middle of the mob on 6 January, 2021, has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year to restraining Michael Fanone while he was Tased and beaten.

The Justice Department reccomended a sentence of 86 months in prison.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson matched the government’s reccomendation.

“You were not prosecuted for being a Trump supporter,” he said. “You are not a political prisoner ... You were trying to stop the singular thing that makes America America, the peaceful transfer of power. That’s what ‘Stop the Steal’ meant.”

The House select committee investigating the 6 January, 2021 attack on the US Capitol will postpone its Wednesday public hearing due to Hurricane Ian.

The hearing was likely set to be the final public hearing.

Committee chairs Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney said that the panel’s investigation into the Capitol attack “goes forward” and will “soon announce” a date for a rescheduled hearing.

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, testitifed to the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack earlier this summer.

“We’ve gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen, because the potential has been there from the start,” he said.

“I do fear for this next election cycle because who knows what that might bring if a president that’s willing to try to instill and encourage to whip up a civil war amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil,” he added. “Regardless of the human impact.”

In case filings, Stewart Rhodes argued that he would never find an impartial jury in Washington DC.

But 40 per cent of the first 150 potential jurors in his seditious conspiracy trial said they never heard of the Oath Keepers, according to Judge Amit Mehta.

Only 45 per cent said they had watched any of House select committee’s hearings on the January 6 attacks.

His attorneys also said the lack of acquittals in the government’s cases against rioters proves that the district is too prejudiced to consider the mighest charges yet – seditious conspiracy.

“That’s true as a matter of fact but that doesn’t tell me anything about bias or inherent bias of jurors in the District of Columbia,” the judge said.

Jury selection in the case of the Oath Keepers’ leader and four others is underway in DC this week.

If convicted, they could each face up to 20 years in prison.

We’re closing today’s live coverage of the first day of Stewart Rhodes’s trial on seditious conspiracy charges.

The court will resume jury selection tomorrow.