1/12/22: Years in the planning, Rejected-President Trump’s NPR interview spontaneously combusts in just nine minutes. After host Steve Inskeep wonders why Republican officials in Arizona have said the 2020 election in that state was fairly run – and Biden won – Trump called them all “RINOs.” He didn’t stick around long, but did label former Senate Leader and fellow Republican Mitch McConnell a “loser.”
Finally, the big orange baby
hung up in a snit. (For more on imaginary voter fraud, see: 12/28/21, 1/1/22,
1/10/22 and 1/15/22.)
*
DONALD wasn’t the only one having
a bad day. The Department of Justice released a new indictment
against eleven members of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia, including
founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III. Also charged for the first time,
along with Mr. Rhodes, were Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona and Brian
Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia.
Eight other co-defendants had already been indicted for their alleged
roles in the attack on Capitol Hill, but now all face more serious charges.
They are, Thomas Caldwell, Joseph Hackett, Kenneth Harrelson, Joshua James, Kelly
Meggs, Roberto Minuta, David Moerschel and Jessica Watkins.
____________________
“He called us all to the
Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!!”
Kelly Meggs
____________________
The Department of Justice explains:
The seditious conspiracy
indictment alleges that, following the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election,
Rhodes conspired with his co-defendants and others to oppose by force the
execution of the laws governing the transfer of presidential power by Jan. 20,
2021. Beginning in late December 2020, via encrypted and private communications
applications, Rhodes and various co-conspirators coordinated and planned to
travel to Washington, D.C., on or around Jan. 6, 2021, the date of the
certification of the electoral college vote, the indictment alleges. Rhodes and
several co-conspirators made plans to bring weapons to the area to support the
operation. The co-conspirators then traveled across the country to the
Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in early January 2021.
According to the seditious
conspiracy indictment, the defendants conspired through a variety of manners and
means, including: organizing into teams that were prepared and willing to use
force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.;
recruiting members and affiliates to participate in the conspiracy; organizing
trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics; bringing and
contributing paramilitary gear, weapons and supplies – including knives,
batons, camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye
protection and radio equipment – to the Capitol grounds; breaching and
attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building on Jan. 6, 2021,
in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral
college vote; using force against law enforcement officers while inside the
Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; continuing to plot, after Jan. 6, 2021, to oppose by
force the lawful transfer of presidential power, and using websites, social
media, text messaging and encrypted messaging applications to communicate with
co-conspirators and others.
The DOJ also notes
While certain Oath Keepers
members and affiliates breached the Capitol grounds and building, others
remained stationed just outside of the city in quick reaction force (QRF)
teams. According to the indictment, the QRF teams were prepared to rapidly
transport firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C., in support of
operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential
power. The indictment alleges that the teams were coordinated, in part, by
Caldwell and Vallejo.
The charge of seditious
conspiracy carries a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
As far as where these men and women got the brilliant idea to attack the Capitol and thwart the counting of the electoral votes, we can quote Mr. Meggs, in a Facebook post he made in days leading up to the attack: “Trump said It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!! It’s gonna be wild!!!!!!! He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC pack your s***!!”
Meggs, for one, had specific ideas when it came to what shit he and his friends might bring. Mace. Gas masks. Batons. “If you have armor that’s good,” he added in a Christmas Day post in 2020.
As noted
in a previous indictment, Meggs and others were ready to go farther.
The day after Christmas, Graydon Young, another Oath Keeper also previously
charged, emailed a Florida company that specialized in firearms and combat
training. Young noted that he had recently joined the group, had already trained
with the Florida company, and was recommending them to his “team.” “To that effect,” he explained, “four
of us would like to train with you, specifically in your UTM [ultimate training
munitions] rifle class.”
The plot will no doubt continue to thicken. Mr. Young promised others that for every Oath Keeper you saw on January 6, there would be at least two, in “grey man” mode, those you didn’t see in the crowd.
According to prosecutors, Meggs predicted “we will have at least 50 to 100 OK there,” on the day everything got wild, what they claim is a reference to the expected turnout for the Oath Keepers.
So, other indictments for sedition
are nearly certain. On June 16, 2021, Mr. Young
was offered a plea deal, if he agreed to two charges, with a likely sentence,
combined, ranging between 63 and 78 months in prison. On June 23, he plead
guilty to the most serious of the two charges. We can assume he is cooperating with prosecutors.
*
THE EVIDENCE against the Oath Keepers would appear damning. Just two days after the November 2020 election, with the outcome of the vote count clearly in doubt, Rhodes was already prepared to drop the niceties of voting in person, or voting by mail, or voting in general.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he predicted in an encrypted chat on the app Signal. “Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit.”
On November 7, the day the election was called for Biden, Rhodes allegedly messaged his team again: “[W]e must now do what the people of Serbia did when Milosevic stole their election. – Refuse to accept it and march en-mass on the nation’s Capitol.”
In fact, Rhodes explained that he was in contact with one of the leaders of the Serbian freedom fight. He believed steps taken in Serbia would work in the United States, too. Quoting the Serbian leader, those included:
We
swarmed the streets and started confronting the opponents. I Know, not nice,
but it must be done if the institutions stop to exist - Millions gathered in
our capital. There were no barricades strong enough to stop them, nor the
police determined enough to stop them! - Police and Military aligned with the
people after few hours of this fight - We stormed the Parliament - And burned
down fake state Television! WE WON
A month later, Rhodes wrote again to members of his like-minded crew: “It will be a bloody and desperate fight. We are going to have a fight. That can’t be avoided.” For good measure, he added, “there is no standard political or legal way out of this.”
And let’s be clear. The “bloody” part would have involved spilling the blood of other Americans.
It doesn’t help to know that
members of the Oath Keepers were in Washington D.C. on January 6, providing
“security” for none other than pardoned-seven-time-felon Roger Stone, an
advisor to the president (who had pardoned him just two weeks before). Or to remember that Stone has refused to
cooperate with the House Select panel investigating events surrounding the
attack – and when forced by threat of arrest to appear – plead the Fifth on
every question asked.
In fact, in a letter the panel sent earlier to Mr. Rhodes, they asked for his cooperation (now moot in the face of indictment), noting that on Election Day in 2020, Rhodes was already feeling an itch in his trigger finger. An “honest” count of the votes, he told his members, could only end in a Trump victory.
If the vote went otherwise, it would be time to “stock up on ammo” and prepare for a “full-on war in the streets.”
Did I already mention whose
blood would be spilled in the streets if Mr. Rhodes and his pals had their way?
If most Americans were appalled by what they saw happening on the day of the assault on Capitol Hill, Rhodes was allegedly excited by what he was witnessing. At 1:38 p.m. he wrote on Signal, “All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough.”
Enough of democracy, you mean?
On the evening of the attack itself, prosecutors say Rhodes, Vallejo and other members of their group met at an Olive Garden restaurant in Vienna, Va., to “celebrate their attack on the Capitol and discuss next steps.”
“Thousands of ticked off patriots
spontaneously marched on the Capitol,” Rhodes wrote that night on his Signal
group chat. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
So, bread sticks and sedition! What
could go wrong. The full
indictment, 81 pages long, is now available.
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