Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right militia, the Oath Keepers, was sentenced in late May 2023 to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for the part he played in mobilizing the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The attack came as a response to baseless claims by President Donald Trump, right-wing politicians, and right-wing media, that Trump was denied re-election because of widespread voter fraud.
Rhodes’ sentence was “the most severe penalty so far in the more than 1,000 criminal cases stemming from the Capitol attack,” the New York Times reported.
The U.S. Code defines seditious conspiracy as when “two or more persons . . . conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-1999-title18-section2384&num=0&edition=1999
The Department of Justice said that Rhodes and the Oath Keepers used a “variety of manners and means” — including using “paramilitary combat tactics” and tactile gear to “breach and attempt to take control of the Capitol grounds . . . . in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral college vote.”
https://www.ktvh.com/oath-keeper-leader-disbarred-by-montana-supreme-court
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/25/1178116193/stewart-rhodes-oath-keepers-verdict
Before Rhodes’ sentence was handed down, he told U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that he was innocent. He described himself as a “political prisoner.”
“Like President Trump, my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” Rhodes said.
Mehta sharply rebuked Rhodes, telling Rhodes he poses an “ongoing threat to this country.”
“For decades it is clear that you wanted the democracy in this country to devolve into violence,” Mehta said. “You’re not a political prisoner. You’re here because 12 jurors in D.C. who acquitted you of multiple counts found you guilty of sedition.”
“It could have been a far uglier day . . . and people should not forget that,” Mehta said of the January 6th insurrection.
Rhodes’ attorney Phillip Linder said that prosecutors were trying to turn Rhodes into “the face” of the insurrection.
“If you want to put a face on J6 (Jan. 6), you put it on Trump, right-wing media, politicians, all the people who spun that narrative,” Linder said.
Rhodes served in the U.S. Army before he was severely injured during a parachuting accident.
Rhodes, ignoring the warning in the movie A Christmas Story, later accidentally dropped a gun that discharged. A bullet struck him in the face and blinded him in the left eye. He has since worn an eyepatch.
Rhodes worked for libertarian congressman Ron Paul of Texas before going to Yale University law school.
The Associated Press said that after Rhodes graduated from Yale, he went to work as a clerk for an Arizona State Supreme Court justice. He then became politicized by the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act, which curtailed civil liberties in the United States and he then left his job.
“Since then, he has ordered his life around a thirst for greatness and deep distrust of government,” the Associated Press reported.
Rhodes created the anti-government organization, the Oath Keepers, to confront the federal government over such civil rights issues as warrantless searches and the detaining of criminal suspects without due process.
This path led him to organize a violent insurrection to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president.
https://apnews.com/article/oath-keepers-founder-jan-6-trial-4372b311695c401255c6881111ff4f41
Rhodes was disbarred in 2015 after refusing to appear in court to answer ethics charges against him over what was called his “incompetent representation” of clients. He repeatedly ignored these dictates and was disbarred.
https://www.ktvh.com/oath-keeper-leader-disbarred-by-montana-supreme-court
Rhodes’ wife asked for a restraining order against her then-husband, accusing him of abuse and household violence. That order was denied.
https://www.ktvh.com/oath-keeper-leader-disbarred-by-montana-supreme-court
Justice Department prosecutors sought a 25-year sentence for Rhodes, saying a harsh sentence was critical “to ensure the respect for the rule of law that is essential to the survival of our democracy.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy said Rhodes “doggedly drilled in the minds of those on his chats, and those followers of the Oath Keepers the lie of the election fraud, and the false need to act like the Founding Fathers in order to save in his view, our Constitution and our country.”
In the days after the January 6 insurrection, Rhodes tried to get a letter through an intermediary to then-President Trump. Rhodes’s message told Trump that the Oath Keepers would support the president if he invoked the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act empowered Trump to call up the National Guard and other militias to put down the attempted coup behind the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s victory.
“You must use the Insurrection Act and use the power of presidency to stop him. All us veterans will support you,” Rhodes wrote. If Trump didn’t act, Rhodes said, then Trump and his children would “die in prison.”
Rhodes told the intermediary, who passed on his letter to the FBI and then testified against him at trial, that if Trump wasn’t going to act, then the Oath Keepers and others should have acted more violently on January 6th.
This included the lynching of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“If he’s not going to do the right thing and he’s just gonna let himself be removed illegally then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said. “We should have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang (expletive) Pelosi from the lamppost,” Rhodes said.
