A U.S. judge on May 25 sentenced the founder of the Oath Keepers militia group to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach, after a defiant Rhodes stood before him and insisted that he’s a “political prisoner.”
“For decades, Mr. Rhodes, it is clear you have wanted the democracy of this country to devolve into violence,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, told Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder.
“You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes.”
Mehta said he believes Rhodes represents an “ongoing threat” to the country.
Seditious conspiracy alone carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Rhodes was also convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and tampering with documents or proceedings.
He was acquitted of two other charges.
Mehta handed down an 18-year sentence—the lengthiest term yet in the Jan. 6 cases. He applied sentencing enhancements based on factors including Rhodes’s “terroristic conduct,” saying the evidence showed that Rhodes “was at the top of the chain” and that he was culpable for the actions of the Oath Keepers.
Multiple other Oath Keepers have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, breach.
Rhodes told the judge that he was a political prisoner.
‘Persecution’
Rhodes told The Epoch Times previously that he was being persecuted for being himself, describing a “political persecution campaign.”He didn’t enter the Capitol.
“And yet, here I sit, because of who I am, and because of what I said—my political speech—not because of anything constituting an actual crime, not because of anything I actually did,” Rhodes said in March.
Kelly Meggs, another Oath Keepers leader, went into the building with some other members.
“When Kelly Meggs told me his team had gone inside, I told him, ‘That was stupid,’ because entering the building would make it easier for our political enemies to persecute us. And that is exactly what happened,” Rhodes said.
He said he viewed the verdicts as “pre-ordained” because in Washington, which overwhelmingly votes for Democrats, “there can be no such thing as a fair trial ... for any Trump supporter.”
Oath Keepers
The Oath Keepers is a group composed primarily of former and current law enforcement and military members who have taken an oath to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”They’ve been present at a number of rallies and other events since being founded in 2009, including a series of rallies for former President Donald Trump.
Rhodes said he went to Washington to provide security for top speakers, including one-time Trump adviser Roger Stone. Rhodes said he was concerned that Trump supporters would be attacked by members of the far-left Antifa network, which has carried out such attacks before. He said he went to the Capitol to order Oath Keepers away from the building after watching television coverage of the chaos breaking out there.
Prosecutors during the trial heavily relied on communications between group members, including messages sent in encrypted chats, to support their case because most Oath Keepers didn’t bring weapons into Washington.
In one message after the 2020 election, Rhodes said, “We are not getting through this without a civil war.”
More Sentencing
Meggs, the group’s former Florida chapter leader, was sentenced to 12 years later Thursday. Both Rhodes and Meggs were also sentenced to three years of supervised release following their prison sentences.“Today’s sentences reflect the grave threat the actions of these defendants posed to our democratic institutions,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The United States proved at trial that the Oath Keepers plotted for months to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. The Justice Department will continue to do everything in our power to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6th attack on our democracy.”
Two others associated with the Oath Keepers, Jessica Watkins and Kenneth Harrelson, are due to be sentenced on May 26. They were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other felony charges.
Four Oath Keepers members convicted of seditious conspiracy in a second trial are due to be sentenced next week.
The judge postponed a sentencing hearing that had been scheduled for May 24 for Thomas Caldwell, another co-defendant acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other charges.
