Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, is seen on a screen in June 2022 during a Congress committee hearing to investigate the attack on the US Capitol
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes denied Monday in his sedition trial that his organization planned the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol, calling those who entered the building “stupid.”
Rhodes, on trial with four others for conspiracy to mount an “armed rebellion” against the US government, distanced himself from those in the Oath Keepers who took part in the attack by supporters of then-president Donald Trump.
The eyepatch-wearing Yale law graduate and former soldier told the court that about 100 members of his militia-like group were in Washington on January 6 to provide security to rallies and rally speakers.
While he hoped to convince Trump to invoke the US insurrection act to halt the transfer of power to election winner Joe Biden, there was no plan to stop the Congress’s certification of Biden as the next president, Rhodes said.
“It was not part of our mission for that day to enter the Capitol for any reason,” he said. “I expected Congress to go ahead and certify this unconstitutional election.”
When he realized that hundreds of people had stormed into the building housing the US legislature, he said he tried to contact fellow Oath Keepers to stop them from taking part.
“I’m wondering where my people are. I didn’t want them getting wrapped up with all the nonsense with Trump supporters.”
He said that co-defendant Kelly Meggs, the head of the large Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, was “an idiot” for taking his people into the Capitol.
“I think it was stupid to go into the Capitol. It opened the door for the political persecution of us. And that’s where we are,” he told the court.
The Justice Department says that Rhodes and the Oath Keepers planned for violence when they came to Washington on January 6.
It has shown videos the violent assault by dozens of group members dressed in military-style combat gear, and records of Rhodes buying thousands of dollars worth of arms and other equipment ahead of arriving in Washington.
Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Nestler said when the trial opened on October 3 that Rhodes and the Oath Keepers “concocted a plan for an armed rebellion… plotting to oppose by force the government of the United States.”
Rhodes said though that while being the founder of the Oath Keepers, he mostly delegated responsibilities to those below him and did not know well at least two of his co-defendants before January 6.
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