What ties did Stewart Rhodes have to Donald Trump?

Rhodes was in a group chat called “ Friends of Stone ” (FOS) organized by Trump confidant Roger Stone that also included Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander and right-wing talk show host Alex Jones, among dozens of others. Rhodes used the chat to try to get a message to Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, saying in December 2020, “He must do it NOW before Jan. 6,” according to evidence prosecutors presented. Earlier, on Nov. 7, Rhodes also shared with the same group a suggested plan to swarm the streets and storm the Capitol. In chats shown in court, Rhodes said he was part of “back channel working groups” trying to get Trump “to see the other options and put them on the table.” In the middle of the riot on Jan. 6, about 15 minutes after the building was breached from the west, Rhodes again sent a message to the FOS group saying, “Back door of the Capitol.” Oath Keepers had gathered on the east side and breached an entrance with others 10 minutes later. Afterward, on Jan. 10, Rhodes tried to contact Trump through Jason Alpers, a co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, which helped the Trump team research and spread false election fraud claims. Alpers testified that he had an “indirect” line to Trump’s “inner circle.” Alpers recorded Rhodes as he warned that Trump and his family would wind up dead like the last Russian czar unless he invoked the Insurrection Act, and that the Oath Keepers would fight in either case. Instead of sharing the message with the president, he went to the FBI.

What did Rhodes do outside the Capitol on Jan. 6?

Rhodes has maintained that there was never any intention to enter the Capitol, and Oath Keepers who did so “went totally off mission.” He has said the group came to Washington as a “peacekeeping” security force that brought firearms only in case Trump mobilized private militias under the Insurrection Act. But prosecutors played jurors video clips showing that Rhodes and Meggs were on the phone just as Meggs began leading other Oath Keepers toward the building. As they went inside, Rhodes is then seen on video exulting that lawmakers “need to be s----ing their f---ing pants.” Kellye SoRelle, the Oath Keepers attorney, was also romantically involved with Rhodes and acted as his deputy in encrypted communications with the group’s leaders, according to court evidence. On Jan. 6, SoRelle shared a message that she said came from Rhodes endorsing the breaching of police barricades at the Capitol, writing, “ We are acting like founding fathers, can’t stand down .” As Rhodes was making his way toward her position, SoRelle also recorded a 4-minute long Facebook live stream at the east side of the Capitol just as Proud Boys simultaneously broke into the building on the west side, saying, “This is what happens when the people are pissed and when they rise up,” in clips played for jurors. “They may end up inside before it’s all said and done, and that’s okay too. That’s how you take your government back. You literally take it back.” After Jan. 6, she forwarded what she said was Rhodes’s order to erase encrypted Signal conversations about the riot: “Do not discuss who did what,” she wrote, according to evidence prosecutors presented. “DELETE your self-incriminating comments or those that can incriminate others.”

What was revealed by Oath Keepers cooperating with the government?

Former Florida Oath Keepers members Jason K. Dolan and Graydon P. Young — who have pleaded guilty to conspiracy — testified that they knew of no specific prior plan or order by Rhodes to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6. However, Young and Dolan described having a “common-sense” understanding or an awareness that it was Rhodes’s “commander’s intent” for co-conspirators to bring firearms and come to Washington to stop Congress from confirming Biden’s election victory. Young and Dolan also testified they knew their actions were treasonous. “It wasn’t explicit but it was implied that, either right away or sometime in the future, we were going to do something,” Young testified. “And then when the crowd went over to the building on Jan. 6, it opened up the opportunity to do something.” Dolan said members were prepared to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election “by any means necessary” and brought firearms for that reason. Three Oath Keepers members who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges did not testify, but some of their communications were shown in court.

What about the other Oath Keepers on trial?

On Nov. 4, the morning after polls closed, Meggs — the Florida state leader for the Oath Keepers — began discussing in a leadership chat group “battle plans” for rejecting a Biden victory, according to records shown in court. In December, he told other Florida Oath Keepers that the group should “wait patiently” for people to rise up “and then be the leaders.” Young testified that Meggs also said in advance of the riot that he had “high level” ties to Proud Boys, another right-wing group whose members, including Tarrio, face charges of seditious conspiracy. Meggs and Harrelson discussed deleting communications after Jan. 6, according to the records shown in court, and none of their Signal chats from before January were recovered, although some were preserved on others’ phones obtained by the government. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn testified that he confronted Harrelson and Meggs inside the building and blocked them from going further. The defendants argued that they were helping protect Dunn from others in the crowd; the officer denied that, saying that was a separate encounter with different people in military-style dress. Caldwell did not enter the building, but he bragged in social media messages shown in court that he and his wife “assaulted the Capitol.” A Facebook official testified that Caldwell also deleted more than 180 other Facebook messages, mostly on Jan. 15, 2021, four days before his arrest. On Jan. 13, 2021, he messaged a friend about assembling firearms, saying, “Looks like things will get hairy.” Messages from Watkins were used extensively in pretrial filings, but prosecutors added some more, including one from after the riot that she posted on Parler: “The media calls me a traitor, the left calls me a racist and now the right calls me a thug. Why? Because I stormed into the Capitol Building in full battle rattle to speak my mind and stop the steal.”

What have other witnesses said?

When Rhodes held a phone conference with other Oath Keepers on Nov. 9, 2020, one member recorded it and testified that he sent tips about it to the FBI, the Capitol Police and the D.C. attorney general, saying it sounded like “we were going to war.” But none of the agencies responded to the tip, Special Agent Michael Palian said during the second day of his testimony. Federal and local law enforcement officials received an avalanche of tips warning of violence in Washington to keep Trump in power, but the Capitol was only lightly protected on Jan. 6 . A former member of the Oath Keepers had also testified that Rhodes claimed to be in touch with someone in the Secret Service months before the riot. A Secret Service official confirmed that members of the agency’s protective intelligence division contacted the Oath Keepers in advance of protests in D.C. in November and December as well as the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally. The Secret Service official said agents regularly engage in such advance contact with protest groups expected to attend public presidential events to explain what items are prohibited and learn more about the protesters’ numbers and plans to assess the risk to protected officials.

Legal Issues

What we’ve learned from the Jan. 6 Oath Keepers trial so far

Prosecutors have rested their case after more than a month of testimony in the seditious conspiracy trial of Stewart Rhodes

By Spencer S. Hsu

Rachel Weiner

and

Tom Jackman

Updated November 4, 2022 at 7:24 a.m. EDT|Published November 4, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

This artist sketch depicts the trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes (center with eye patch) and four others charged with seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Dana Verkouteren/AP)

The seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol reached a turning point as U.S. prosecutors finished presenting their case Thursday in federal court.

Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.

For more than a month, prosecutors have presented nearly 30 witnesses, played hours of video and reviewed scores of messages as they try to convince a jury in Washington that the group on trial sought to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power and “shatter a bedrock of American democracy.” Rhodes himself took the witness stand Friday, but only briefly, as the defense portion of the case began.

Rhodes is the highest-profile defendant charged so far in the Jan. 6 investigation and is accused of steering a months-long effort to keep President Donald Trump in office by force. He is among 14 defendants hit with the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy in one of the largest investigations in U.S. history, and the trial has been watched closely for what it might reveal about the quest to subvert the 2020 presidential election results by anyone in Trump’s inner circle.

Rhodes is on trial with Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs and Jessica Watkins. All are accused of conspiring to engage in sedition, obstruct Congress’s affirmation of President Biden’s victory and impede lawmakers from performing their official duties on Jan. 6. Meggs, Harrelson and Watkins, who went into the Capitol, are also accused of damaging property, and all but Watkins are charged with destroying evidence.

Here are some highlights of testimony and evidence the government has presented:

The Oath Keepers trial

The latest: At sentencing, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes faces up to 25 years in prison. In a second sedition trial, four members of the far-right Oath Keepers group were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

How did we get here: Stewart Rhodes and other members of his group were charged with seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Who is involved: A 13-count indictment charges Stewart Rhodes and eight others with conspiring to use force to oppose the lawful transfer of power to President Biden. Here are the nine Oath Keepers on trial.