Oath Keepers trial: Takeaways from week 1
By Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
The first week of the seditious conspiracy trial against members of the Oath Keepers concluded Friday, with prosecutors and defense attorneys working to shape the narrative around what the extremist far-right group was planning in the lead-up to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.
As they began their case, prosecutors have called six witnesses, including law enforcement as well as current and former members of the Oath Keepers.
Several witnesses spent hours on the stand, recounting their interactions with the defendants, running through the timeline of the alleged conspiracy — marking dates on a giant calendar in the courtroom — and following the alleged descent of Stewart Rhodes, Thomas Caldwell, Jessica Watkins, Kelly Meggs and Kenneth Harrelson into the depths of an extremist movement.
Prosecutors have heavily relied on what they say are the defendants’ own words in group chats, online postings and speeches to form the basis of the alleged conspiracy.
The five defendants, charged with seditious conspiracy, have pleaded not guilty. Here are the key takeaways from the first week of the historic trial:
Prosecutors highlight violent rhetoric
Prosecutors highlighted the changes in rhetoric among Oath Keepers as challenges to the 2020 election grew after President Donald Trump’s defeat.
Three current and former members of the Oath Keepers took the stand to discuss what one witness called, the militia’s “unchained rhetoric.”
Abdullah Rasheed, a former Marine, convicted felon and member of the West Virginia chapter, dialed into a November 9, 2020, meeting with over 100 attendees to plan for a political rally supporting Trump later that month. Rasheed, who testified that he joined the organization because he “liked what they stood for,” became so concerned with what he was hearing on the call that he began to record the meeting on a second phone.
“I listened to the call and the more I listened it sounded like we were going to war against the United States government,” Rasheed told the jury. He testified that he continued to attend Oath Keeper meetings and said that the rhetoric got progressively more violent.
“It sounded horrible. I didn’t like what I joined,” he testified. Rasheed sent a tip to the FBI and Capitol Police about his recording but did not hear back until he resubmitted the tip after the Capitol attack.
The man who organized the November meeting, Michael Adams, testified that he too became increasingly disillusioned with Rhodes and the group.
After Rhodes published two public letters in December saying people would take up arms if Trump didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act, Adams testified that he resigned from his position as the coordinator for the group’s Florida chapter.
John Zimmerman, an Army veteran and leader of a North Carolina chapter, recounted a confrontation with Rhodes after the November “Million MAGA March” which shifted his perception of Rhodes so significantly that his chapter separated from the national organization.
Rhodes “thought that we should dress up as elderly and be like a single parent pushing a baby carriage and put weapons in the baby carriage,” Zimmerman said, “and if we could entice [Antifa], we could give ’em a beat down.”
“That’s not what we do. And so that’s why we left,” Zimmerman said.
Members allegedly discussing violence
Throughout the first week of trial, prosecutors brought dozens of messages from the defendants discussing violence before and after the Capitol attack.
On the night of the November presidential election, Meggs allegedly wrote to a family group chat that he was going to go “on a killing spree” and “Pelosi first.”
Prosecutors cited Rhodes’s December letters to Trump, telling him to refuse to cede power to Joe Biden, writing that if he failed, groups like the Oath Keepers would rise up and fight a “bloody revolution.”
On December 12, 2020, Rhodes allegedly repeated the themes of the letter during a speech at a public rally in DC.
“(Trump) needs to know from you that you are with him,” Rhodes told the audience in a video prosecutors played for the jury. “That (if) he does not do it now while he is Commander in Chief, we are going to have to do it ourselves later, in a much more desperate, much more bloody war.”
Two days later, Rhodes wrote to a Signal chat of Oath Keeper leaders that “Trump has one last chance to act. He must use the insurrection act,” adding that if he didn’t, they would “fight a bloody civil war/revolution.”
The evening after the Capitol attack on January 6, an alleged leader of the group, Caldwell, wrote in a separate group chat that, “If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians.”
Planning
The organization began planning for violence just after media outlets called the election for Biden, prosecutors alleged, well before the January 6 Trump rally had been announced.
Caldwell, prosecutors say, did extensive planning for the group in the months before the Capitol attack. He allegedly took reconnaissance trips to DC, and prosecutors showed the jury dozens of pictures Caldwell captured around the city.
He used the trip to understand the layout of the city and share maps of DC, prosecutors said, in which he highlighted routes for Oath Keepers and discussed how the QRF — “quick reaction force” should establish water transportation to more easily move weapons from Virginia across the river into Washington, DC.
According to prosecutors, Caldwell also sent an “OPSEC” (operations security) document to a member of the Oath Keepers around the same time, detailing how the group should communicate through burner phones and prepare for violence in future operations.
The OPSEC’s mission statement said the document was to prepare for confronting Antifa, but the contents of the document discussed using “non-attributable weapons” that are not registered to the person carrying the firearm and instructing guns be “wiped down before being fully loaded” so they can’t be traced.
Some of the defendants, including Rhodes and Watkins, allegedly discussed holding militia training sessions — though it is not clear if those trainings ever took place.
“Time to get serious about training,” Rhodes said in a late November message. “And force on force is the way to go”
Oath Keepers defense
The lack of incidents with QRFs for prior events earlier, defense attorneys for the five defendants have repeatedly argued, is proof that the group was not preparing to storm the Capitol on January 6.
In cross-examination of the three Oath Keeper witnesses, defense attorneys pointed out that QRFs were common at rallies the organization attended prior to January 6, and that none of those rallies turned violent. The witnesses added that the organization’s reason for bringing tactical gear and weapons to rallies in the past was the belief that Antifa or Black Lives Matter groups might try to start a fight.
“My concern was … Antifa and so many of the others that were involved in these protests,” Zimmerman, one of the witnesses, said on the stand. “I was concerned that this was something that was going to grow and become more and more problematic.”
Rhodes’ attorneys have emphasized that the leader’s bombastic rhetoric about being ready for violence in Washington is consistent with his very public calls for Trump to assert the Insurrection Act.
Others have argued that the Justice Department rushed to arrest members in the group and got basic facts about the case wrong at the time and mishandled early investigative steps.
David Fischer, Caldwell’s attorney, told jurors that while FBI agents initially believed Caldwell was inside the Capitol building during the attack — in part because Caldwell allegedly wrote to a group chat “inside” on January 6 — his client was only ever on the outside of the building.
Fischer alleged that Special Agent Michael Palian, who interviewed Caldwell after his arrest, misstated what charges Caldwell was facing. Fischer also said that Caldwell asked Palian if he was wearing a “shoe phone,” — a reference to 1960s television show “Get Smart” — meaning was he being recorded, and that Palian falsely said no.
“I wasn’t around in 1960,” Palian said, testifying that he did not understand the reference.
The trial is expected to last several more weeks.
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