Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes ordered to be jailed until trial on seditious conspiracy

Rhodes is accused, with 10 other defendants, of coordinating travel, organizing into teams, undergoing paramilitary training, and staging weapons, ready “to answer Rhodes’ call to take up arms at Rhodes’ direction” before, during and after Jan. 6 to prevent Biden’s inauguration, the indictment alleges.

That day, members of the Oath Keepers forcibly entered the Capitol in helmets and combat gear, confronted police, and moved in two groups toward the Senate and in search of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), prosecutors have asserted.

“If the conduct as alleged is true, the danger it poses cannot be understated,” Mehta said. Rhodes, the most high-profile figure arrested in the probe, allegedly “devised and carried out a plot to prevent the lawful transition of presidential power,” Mehta said while reading the detention order. If freed, he could “continue to plot and prepare for political violence that undermines the foundation of our democracy,” the judge said.

“He presents a clear and continuing danger in my view,” Mehta said, that has not been neutralized over the year since the rioting by his cooperation with the FBI, testimony before a House select investigative committee or refraining from attempting to flee or obstruct justice.

The decision came after Rhodes appealed an earlier magistrate judge’s order that he remain jailed in the first and only seditious conspiracy case brought so far by federal prosecutors in the Capitol attack.

Rhodes, 56, has pleaded not guilty and been detained since his Jan. 13 arrest in Texas. He was at the Capitol that day but has said he did not enter the building, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has said he is eager to defend his views and face public trial.

His attorney, James Lee Bright, argued that his client voluntarily met with FBI agents several times over a year before his indictment, offered to self-surrender, turned over his phone to agents and has no passport. While he engaged in “certainly a lot of bombastic language,” Bright said, “there was no conspiracy to overthrow the government.”

But Mehta called Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate who has become one of the most visible figures of the far-right anti-government movement, “an extremely sophisticated individual,” rebutting his defenses point-by-point.

His “ability to communicate and organize are his greatest weapon,” and his skill with encrypted communications and access to a network of like-minded individuals made it impossible for any conditional release to ensure the safety of the community, Mehta said.

The Capitol attack followed a rally at the Ellipse, at which President Donald Trump urged his supporters to march to Congress. Pro-Trump rioters assaulted more than 100 officers and stormed Capitol offices, halting the proceedings as Congress met to confirm the winner of the 2020 election and forcing the evacuation of lawmakers.

Attorneys for Rhodes said that he and the other defendants were drawn to Washington and gathered that day in helmets and body armor to provide security and staged firearms nearby in the hope that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, transforming the Oath Keepers into a kind of militia to keep Trump in power despite the 2020 election results.

But Mehta said they could have stayed with those they were protecting and away from the Capitol during the rioting. Before and after that day, Rhodes gave a number of statements contradicting the premise that he was simply waiting on an order from Trump that did not happen, Mehta said, telling followers to prepare to act with or without Trump and following the course of “revolution.”

According to the indictment, Rhodes began preparing followers for violence two days after the 2020 election. On Nov. 5, Rhodes told an invitation-only message group of Oath Keepers leaders, “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit.” On Nov. 10, he published a call to action titled, “What We The People Must Do,” citing the example of an anti-government uprising in Serbia and storming parliament, the court filing said.

Rhodes warned in December that if Biden were to assume the presidency, “We will have to do a bloody, massively bloody revolution against them,” and coordinated the marshaling and stashing of a small “arsenal” of firearms just outside Washington for use if needed on Jan. 6, according to charging papers.

In her earlier detention ruling for Rhodes, U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson of Texas also pointed to FBI reports that said investigators found weapons in a search of his storage unit and evidence he purchased $40,000 of firearms and related gear in the days before and after Jan. 6.

Mehta said he was not concerned with his First and Second Amendment rights to free speech and to purchase and transport firearms but with his actions, and the timing and amount of gun purchases far in excess of any need for individual self-defense or recreation in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 and through Biden’s inauguration two weeks later.

“Mr. Rhodes is accused not just of speaking. He is accused of taking action, gathering people, and planning to disrupt the lawful electoral certification process … of authorizing, if not outright, ordering conspirators to enter the Capitol in tactical gear,” Mehta said.