Oath Keepers militia leader guilty of sedition in US Capitol assault
- Important win for US Justice Department as court issues verdicts against Oath Keepers leaders
- This was the highest-profile trial so far to emerge from the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol
Two leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were found guilty of sedition on Tuesday in the most high-profile case yet stemming from the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of then-president Donald Trump.
A federal jury convicted Rhodes, 57, and Kelly Meggs, 53, leader of the militia’s Florida chapter, of the rarely pursued charge of seditious conspiracy, which carries up to 20 years in prison.
The 12-person jury acquitted three other members of the Oath Keepers – Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell – who faced the sedition charge, but it convicted them of lesser offences such as obstructing an official proceeding.
Rhodes, an eyepatch-wearing former soldier and Yale law school graduate, and the four other group members were accused of plotting to keep Trump in power and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
During the nearly two-week trial in Washington, prosecutors said the Oath Keepers “concocted a plan for an armed rebellion … plotting to oppose by force the government of the United States.”
Hundreds of Trump supporters have been arrested for their roles in the assault on Congress but they have faced less serious charges than those lodged against Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers.