U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta heard from victims on Wednesday as he prepares to issue the first Jan. 6 treason verdict against the Oath Keepers.
Prosecutors are seeking 25 years in prison for Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes. and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs for treason. If granted, the injunction would be the longest among hundreds of J6 lawsuits, as it “seeks to block the transfer of power from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden.”
The government is also insisting that the judge take action additional penalties for terrorismcontends the Oath Keepers sought to influence the government by “intimidation or coercion.”
Rhodes’ attorneys are urging a judge to sentence him to the nearly 16 months he has already served since his January 2022 arrest.
Rhodes and Meggs will be sentenced on May 25 at 9:30 am and 1:30 pm.
Police are seen firing rubber bullets, rubber bullets and grenades at the peaceful, unarmed protesters. movie published by The Gateway Pundit last week. The government fired back, escalating the raucous protests that disrupted people’s lives with the use of lethal force, defense attorney Steven Metcalf said. he explained.
Members of the Oath Keepers are seen trying to rescue police officers at the Capitol on January 6, in photos posted to TGP Wednesday from He was sued in the USAnon-profit to support J6 defendants and legal expenses.
In the torture statement submitted to Justice Mehta, the law enforcement officials painted a very different picture, portraying themselves as victims of the murderous gang.
As Metha prepares to hand down the verdicts in the high-profile case on January 6, he heard from police and civil servants who said they were still traumatized and traumatized by the chaos.
Metropolitan police officer Christopher Owens, who walked past members of the Oath Keepers in the Senate chambers as protesters entered the building, described how his wife broke down in tears after seeing the blood and bruises on her arms.
“We went through physical pain, emotional trauma and emotional trauma,” Owens said he wrote. The pain we experienced that day was endless.
Terri McCullough, chief of staff to then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, said protesters tried to find Pelosi while her staff hid in the conference room for hours.
“The protesters destroyed our workplaces, our government and our democracy. Democracy won,” McCullough wrote.
Assistant Capitol Police officer David Lazarus, who oversaw Pelosi’s 2021 security, said some of his staff members resigned because of the experience.
“Lives and jobs have been destroyed and will never come back,” he wrote.
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who crossed paths with the Oath Keepers in the Rotunda, told the court’s rioters to turn “the palace of American democracy” into a conspiracy.
Dunn said he is “always in fear for my daughter, my loved ones, and myself” following January 6, and has become “a shell of who he used to be” and dreads coming to work every day, but the plot against the plot and his potential. The terrorist supplement helped him get “a little relief.”
“I am very happy that in this case, justice has been done,” he said he wrote.
Dunn likes to go to work at the Capitol, writing in his affected speech. But now, he is afraid of it. The halls remind him of everything he has seen and experienced. They have to reopen these wounds every time these critics refuse to take responsibility for their actions. pic.twitter.com/dijkaC0aCE
— Brandi Buchman (@Brandi_Buchman) May 24, 2023
Virginia Brown, a Senate chamber aide who helped carry a ballot box through the Rotunda on January 6, said she took off her shoes to run because she was “fearing for her life” as the “mob” broke the rules. Capitol.
He said: “I always remember what happened that day. I can’t measure how many hours I slept.
The Oath Keeper’s case of treason he started on September 27, 2022. On Jan. 23, a DC jury condemned Rhodes and Meggs of the coup plot.
Civil War-era prosecutors have argued for weeks that Rhodes and his “extremist gang” planned a coup to keep Joe Biden out of the White House.
Some Oath Keepers brought weapons to their hotels in Virginia but left the weapons behind when they went to DC. The government says they hid the weapons at the hotel for “quick action,” to get the weapons to the state Capitol quickly.
Equipment not used. None of the Oath Keepers have been charged with assaulting officers – with or without a weapon. None of the Oath Keepers have any criminal record.
Rhodes did not go inside the Capitol.
** Please give to Stewart Rhodes Legal Defense Fund here if you can.
The government built its case against the Oath Keepers around dozens of secret messages and communications in the weeks leading up to January 6 that showed Rhodes supporting Trump.
In court, Rhodes’ attorneys argued that all of Rhodes’ speech was “protected political speech.”
They wrote: “None of his protected words encouraged or encouraged violence or illegality, and could not have been caused by his words.” “Notably, nothing Mr. Rhodes wrote or published about preventing a power grab between President Trump and President-elect Biden.”
Defense advocates also rejected the government’s portrayal of the Oath Keepers as an extremist group, pointing to how its members provided humanitarian aid after Hurricane Katrina and other major disasters.
When Rhodes took the stand at trial, he told the jury that there was no plan to attack the Capitol and the Oath Keepers acted on their own. His lawyers say they will appeal his decision.
Of the nine arrested Oath Keepers, prosecutors are seeking the strongest possible charge against Rhodes.
Judges did not agree to the request of the Department of Justice to use “extra terrorism” in any of the cases of January 6, but it is not known whether the longer sentences will be given because of the attack plot, “terrorists”.
“Prosecutors have tried to increase the crime in four previous cases since January 6, but the judges have always rejected the request, not seeing enough reason to make the defendants commit such crimes. None of the previous cases involved conspiracy, even though yes, not to mention a treasonous plot,” Lawfare reports. “Without corrections, the guidelines would have sentenced Rhodes to 135 to 165 months (11.25 to 14 years). With corrections, the guidelines would have increased to 262 to 327 months (21.83 to 27.25 years).
Only 15 people have been convicted of treason since the US Sentencing Guidelines went into effect in 1987. documents. “All of the previous cases involved people who were charged with acts ‘tantamount to war against the United States,’ a standard of sentencing that the government admits is not met here.”
The verdicts of the Oath Keepers could be an example of how long the government will seek the leaders of the Proud Boys, members of the independence movement, who were found guilty of the coup attempt on May 4.
Former Proud Boy chairman Enrique Tarrio, one of the most prominent members of the J6, was not in Washington, DC on January 6.
Tarrio was arrested upon arrival in Washington DC on January 4 for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at a Stop the Steal rally on December 12. A judge ordered Tarrio to stay out of Washington. Police later said they had been arrested to quell possible violence.
When Tarrio was released from prison on January 5, he met Rhodes for the first time.
Like TGP he is report, an undercover FBI agent like Proud Boy took him to a parking garage to meet the Oath Keepers. FBI agent Ken Lizardo refused to testify about the meeting in the treason trial.
The Proud Boys are due to be sentenced in August, but have been informed that their sentencing could be delayed until next year as they endure a third year of solitary confinement at the Alexandria Detention Facility.