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Members of a federal jury will hear opening statements Monday in the most high-profile case brought against participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack so far – that of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four other members of the group.
“This trial is incredibly important,” said Alex Friedfeld, an investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “This is about accountability, about making sure that the people who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection and were involved with the destruction of that day, in an effort to overturn the government, are held accountable.”
The prosecution will go first, laying out its case in about an hour and a half. Then, a defense attorney for each defendant will make their case, which is expected to take close to three hours.
Here’s what you need to know about the Oath Keepers trial.
The Oath Keepers is a right-wing extremist militia group that seeks to defend its interpretation of the U.S. Constitution against perceived enemies – if necessary, by force, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Founded in 2009 by former Army paratrooper Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers has since viewed themselves as a “protector” of civil liberties against a tyrannical government with which conflict is imminent, according to Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
“‘When all else fails, when the government lets you down, when there’s no one else there to protect you, the Oath Keepers are there’ – that was really their propaganda, their messaging in the early years of the organization,” Lewis said.
The group is unique among other militia movement organizations because it targets current and former military, law enforcement and emergency services personnel with its messaging and recruitment, putting a unique set of skills at its disposal, Friedfeld said.
People present during the early years of the organization previously told USA TODAY that, at first, there was nothing really “extreme” about the Oath Keepers.
The group has been involved in nonviolent – albeit, armed – confrontations with government authorities and left-wing protesters for more than a decade, including a 2014 standoff against the Federal Bureau of Land Management at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch and the aftermath of Black teen Michael Brown’s police killing in Ferguson, Missouri.
But over time, as Rhodes’ own views grew more conspiratorial, so too did the group’s.
“By 2020, what you saw was a group that had gone from being vehemently opposed to the government – government agencies, representatives of the government – to almost being in lockstep with the messaging and the propaganda that’s coming out of mainstream right-wing spaces,” Lewis said.
