Oath Keepers Verdict: A Dangerous Escalation in Criminalizing Dissent

Julie Kelly / American Greatness

One year after the events of January 6—despite their best efforts—federal prosecutors still hadn’t filed a single criminal charge that came anything close to resembling “insurrection” or domestic terrorism. Democrats and regime media were agitated: How could they continue promoting the four-hour disturbance as an attempted coup if the most prevalent offense charged by the Department of Justice a year later was the petty misdemeanor of “parading” in the Capitol? Even the chief judge for the D.C. district court overseeing each January 6 case had publicly expressed her frustration that the government wasn’t producing harsher indictments against Trump supporters.

So Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, swooped in to save face. Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, an alleged militia group, were charged on January 12, 2022 with seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the Capitol protest. Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes and 10 others were accused of conspiring “to oppose by force the authority of the Government of the United States, and by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” The law the Oath Keepers attempted to stop, Graves claimed, was the “peaceful transfer of power” vested in both the 12th and 20th amendments.

The indictment was preposterous on its face, something only a grand jury seated in the most Democratic city in the country could countenance. None faced a weapons charge, raising the natural question of how a group of military veterans, most suffering various degrees of service-related disabilities, planned to overtake the government “by force” without a single firearm or explosive device. Despite constant talk in the media about the Oath Keepers’ quick reaction force, individuals who brought weapons with them on the drive to Washington left them behind in a Virginia hotel—legally—so as to not violate the city’s strict gun control laws.

Some militia.

Only one man, Joshua James, was accused of assaulting police in a heated confrontation with officers that afternoon. (He later pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy after the government moved to take away his military benefits—James was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Bagdad in 2007 at age 19, suffers lifelong injuries, and was awarded a Purple Heart—and threatened the father of three young children with life in prison if convicted.)

Two groups of Oath Keepers, described as “stacks” by prosecutors, entered the Capitol about 30 minutes after the building had been evacuated; the first group walked through doors that were opened from the inside on the east side. The second group entered shortly after 3 p.m. and exited a short time later.

Over a seven-week trial for the first five defendants, which started in September, prosecutors presented evidence of inflammatory chats featuring military-style bravado and condemnations of a stolen presidential election. Jurors watched a repetitive loop of videos showing three of the defendants entering the Capitol as well as screenshots of selfies taken inside the Rotunda. Jessica Watkins, a transgender Oath Keepers member from Ohio, was heard on an encrypted audio channel bragging about “sticking to the plan” before she and others entered the building. But far from acting as “insurrectionists” or terrorists, Oath Keepers viewed themselves as “backups” for law enforcement, available in case Antifa or Black Lives Matter rioters caused trouble as they had for months in Washington during the second half of 2020.

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