DOJ wants 25-year jail term for Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes.

The DOJ Seeks 25-Year Prison Sentence for Oath Keepers Founder

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a 25-year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III after he was found guilty at trial of seditious conspiracy and other Jan. 6-related charges. Such a sentence would by far be the longest of any Jan. 6 criminal prosecution.

DOJ Recommends Prison Sentences for Other Oath Keepers

In a 183-page sentencing memorandum (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the DOJ also recommended prison sentences from 10–21 years for seven other Oath Keepers and an associate found guilty of various Jan. 6 crimes during trials in 2022 and early 2023.

• Kelly Meggs, 21 years
• Jessica Watkins, 18 years
• Roberto Minuta, 17 years
• Edward Vallejo, 17 years
• Kenneth Harrelson, 15 years
• Thomas Caldwell, 14 years
• Joseph Hackett, 12 years
• David Moerschel, 10 years

“These defendants were prepared to fight. Not for their country but against it,” federal prosecutors wrote in a filing with U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. “In their own words, they were ‘willing to die’ in a ‘guerrilla war’ to achieve their goal of halting the transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential election,” the memo reads. “As a co-conspirator recognized, their actions made these defendants ‘traitors.’”

Prosecutors Apply Enhancers and Upward Departures from Sentencing Guidelines

In crafting the recommendations, prosecutors applied enhancers and upward departures from sentencing guidelines for aggravating factors such as obstruction and the role each defendant allegedly played on Jan. 6, 2021.

“As legal challenges to the election sputtered, and President Trump gave no indication that he would invoke the Insurrection Act to halt the certification of the election,” the sentencing memo said, “these defendants explicitly discussed the need to use any means necessary, up to and including the use of force, to oppose the transfer of power, and they began to focus on January 6 as a day of action for their objective. Then, on January 6, the defendants seized the opportunity to advance their conspiratorial goal by participating in the attack on the Capitol.”

Defense Attorneys Argue There Was No Plan or Conspiracy to Halt Certification

Defense attorneys said there was no plan nor a conspiracy to halt certification. They said the Oath Keepers did not “attack” the Capitol, although some members entered the building the afternoon of Jan. 6 and rendered assistance to police. The Oath Keepers were in Washington that day to provide event security and VIP protection for permit-approved rallies, attorneys said.

Stewart Rhodes, who will be sentenced on May 25, said he was at a nearby hotel on Jan. 6 when he saw television coverage of violence breaking out at the Capitol. He went to the Capitol and ordered all Oath Keepers away from the building, Rhodes told the FBI in a May 2021 interview.

“So, clearly, the jury found no evidence of any plan by me to do anything regarding entering the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Rhodes said.

In Caldwell’s 25-page sentencing memorandum (pdf), defense attorney David Fischer asked the court to sentence Caldwell to time served with a period of supervised release. Caldwell will be sentenced on May 24.

Fischer rapped the DOJ’s “multiple inaccurate, unsupported, and dubious claims” made about his client. He listed 14 such allegations from the trial that ran from Sept. 27 through Nov. 29, 2022.

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