Oath Keepers founder Rhodes takes the stand in U.S. Capitol riot trial By Reuters

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The founding father of the far-right Oath Keepers group Stewart Rhodes on Friday tried to melt his picture as a militant anti-government supporter of former President Donald Trump, as he took the stand in his trial on prison prices of making an attempt to dam the peaceable switch of presidential energy in 2021.

Rhodes, a Yale Legislation-educated former U.S. Military paratrooper, teared up at instances as he spoke about his determination to create the Oath Keepers in 2009, saying it’s a civic-minded group that welcomes individuals of all races, volunteers to assist hurricane victims and offers veterans returning house from overseas deployments a way of objective.

“The suicide price is so excessive,” Rhodes mentioned referring to the variety of veterans who die by their very own hand every year in america.“And to return house and discover they don’t have any objective. And the nation doesn’t care anymore.”

The choice by Rhodes to take the stand is dangerous. Generally, protection attorneys urge their shoppers to not testify as a result of it has the potential to backfire.

Rhodes and co-defendants Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs and Jessica Watkins are dealing with a number of felonies in reference to an assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 that despatched lawmakers and staffers fleeing for his or her lives.

The costs embody seditious conspiracy, which carries a sentence of as much as 20 years in jail.

All through the trial, prosecutors have mentioned Rhodes is a radical far-right determine who urged his followers to make use of any means vital, together with violence, to maintain Trump in energy and stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Trump supporters, together with the Oath Keeper defendants, gathered on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, as lawmakers met to certify Biden’s win, after the Republican president falsely claimed that the election had been stolen from him by Democrat Joe Biden.

After the assault was over, Rhodes was secretly tape-recorded in a profanity-laced name, saying “we should always have introduced rifles” and that he would have been joyful to hold Home of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest Democrat in Congress and a reviled determine among the many far proper, from a lamppost.

Whereas a lot of the rioters on the U.S. Capitol have mentioned they have been motivated by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, Rhodes mentioned he was not amongst them.

His concern, he mentioned, was not about election fraud, however his perception that the election had been unconstitutional due to a flurry of recent guidelines by state executives quite than legislatures to make it simpler for voters to forged ballots in the course of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Did you imagine the election had been stolen?” one in every of Rhodes’ attorneys requested.

“I imagine the election was unconstitutional… and that made it invalid,” Rhodes mentioned. “You actually cannot have a winner of an unconstitutional election.”

Rhodes is ready to renew testifying on Monday.