The Oath Keepers’ Capitol riot trial explained

AP ^ | Oct 3 | By LINDSAY WHITEHURST

[RandFan]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A trial starting this week in Washington, D.C., is the biggest test yet in the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a violent assault that challenged the foundations of American democracy.

On trial is extremist leader Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group, and four associates. Prosecutors and defense attorneys will make their opening statements on Monday and the trial will last several weeks. Here is a look at what’s to come:

WHO ARE THE OATH KEEPERS?

The antigovernment group was founded in 2009 by Rhodes who was educated at Yale Law School and served briefly as a U.S. Army paratrooper before a training accident left him with a back injury.

The group was named after its stated goal of getting past and present members of the military, first responders and police officers to honor the promise they made to defend the Constitution against enemies. They issued a list of orders that its members wouldn’t obey, such as disarming citizens, carrying out warrantless searches and detaining Americans as enemy combatants in violation of their right to jury trials.

That relatively benign framing and leveraging of social media helped the group grow to one of the largest antigovernment militia groups in U.S. history, but the internal dialog was often darker, experts said. Oath Keepers participated in the standoff with federal off with officials at Nevada’s Bundy Ranch in 2014, and later along rooftops in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand jury declined to charge a police officer in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

[smokingfrog]

Just so y’all know, being a veteran, supporting individual rights and the US constitution is right wing extremism. M-kay?

[Pxzftrnqfrn]

Oath Keepers participated in the standoff with federal off with officials at Nevada’s Bundy Ranch in 2014

(By sitting in lawn chairs? LOL)

and later along rooftops in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand jury declined to charge a police officer in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

(Like the asian shopkeepers in LA that were heros?)

[PhiloBedo]

AP. To call the Oath Keepers unit-government, then provide the reader with the fact the Oath Keepers stated goal is to protect and follow the Constitution, is contradictory.

To call Oath Keepers extremist is saying a US government adhering to the Constitution shouldn’t exist.

These people who write this propaganda really have to twist logic to make their point. It’s no wonder there are so many people waking around with cognitive dissonance.

[JoSixChip]

Why bother with the trial? This is in DC, no judge or jury in DC has not already made up their minds of guilty as charged. No matter what’s charged. They could pull someone off the street and charge them with nothing more then supporting Trump/MAGA and a DC jury would recommend the death penalty.

[Big Red Badger]

Mkay.

[Seruzawa]

Does the FBI pay these cucks by the word or column inch?

[pepsi_junkie]

A trial starting this week in Washington, D.C., is the biggest test yet in the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a violent assault that challenged the foundations of American democracy.

There is so much BS in this opening sentence that it screams "propaganda, propaganda, get yer propaganda here!". I'll limit it to one only. The oath keepers are not described as "allegedly responsible".

[struggle]

No, they were armed.


Which is why the FBI infiltrated them and used them as a pawn during J6.

[Pollard]

one of the largest antigovernment militia groups in U.S. history,

"Oath Keepers". Bunch of people who swore an oath to the US and it's Constitution that outline how our government is supposed to work is anti-government? Same oath all military members and politicians take. Keeping that oath is extremist anti-government? Or is it a "danger to OUR democracy"? (OUR color revolution to take over the US)

[lurk]

Lots of adjectives. They’re lying.

[Demiurge2]

“AP explains” is a joke right there...

[rlmorel]

“Conservatives”.

One word.

It took the execrable AP 674 words to “explain” that.

I hate it when something I have depended on my whole life, the transparency of Leftist idiots which they express involuntarily in their prose to let you know early just exactly what they are going to say.

Granted, it took them just 27 words to get to “... attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a violent assault that challenged the foundations of American democracy...” which is disappointing, but usually they let you know what they are going to say in the first few words.

[FlyingEagle]

Why does Habeus Corpus not apply in Washington DC, and why can these citizens be kept for so long without bail and without trial?

[TheConservativeTejano]

Oath Keepers participated in the standoff with federal off with officials at Nevada’s Bundy Ranch in 2014 (By sitting in lawn chairs? LOL) and later along rooftops in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand jury declined to charge a police officer in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. (Like the asian shopkeepers in LA that were heros?)

It was a rigged presidential election.

The people have every reason to be P.O.ed at the U.S. government.

Even the states of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were declared an unconstitutional counting error, big time!!!

[Steve_Seattle]

"a violent assault that challenged the foundations of American democracy"

They keep repeating this lie. That riot by people who never fired a shot didn't have the slightest chance in hell of overthrowing the government. And 80% of the people later arrested were non-violent people who only entered the Capitol when they assumed it was ok because the police ushered them in. About 40 or 50 people in a crowd of 150,000 might have had some fantasy of doing something, but they clearly had no coherent plan.

[xenia]

Unfortunately I’m seeing the AP news source posted on here frequently now. There was one by Timber Rattler this morning.

I guess we’ve forgotten that the so called mainstream media was fake leftist news.

The scary part of this article is they aren’t going to stop with the Oath Keepers. Conservatives are all at risk now. We are losing our freedom.

[absalom01]

It can be tough to prove because prosecutors have to show the defendants did more than talk about using force, that they conspired to actually use it.
...

It’s punishable by up to 20 years behind bars.

 

Calling this a Soviet show trial is an insult to show trials.  The facts of the case don't support probable cause to arrest, let alone the reasonable doubt standard needed to convict, but that won't matter with a DC jury.  It's astonishing to me that this hasn't generated more outrage.