The Associated Press reports:
Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged with seditious conspiracy, one of the most serious cases to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Stewart Rhodes and the others are the first Jan. 6 defendants charged with the the rare Civil War-era offense to stand trial for what authorities allege was a serious, weekslong plot to violently stop the transfer of presidential power from election-denier Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
The case against Rhodes and his Oath Keeper associates is the biggest test yet for the Justice Department in its massive Jan. 6 prosecution and is being heard in federal court not far from the Capitol. Seditious conspiracy can be difficult to prove, and the last guilty trial verdict was nearly 30 years ago.
Read the full article.
The Justice Department this week will argue at trial for the first time in over a decade that a group of Americans plotted to violently oppose the US government.https://t.co/UepDvkLPpD
— CNN (@CNN) September 27, 2022
Calling from jail on the eve of his trial, Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes says he is a dissident political prisoner like Nelson Mandela and Solzhenitsyn. pic.twitter.com/m3ioJy6eC4
— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) September 26, 2022
Calling from jail on the eve of his trial, Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes admits he had sent a letter urging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare the election invalid, then do a mass declassification “of all the dirty secrets of the elites.” pic.twitter.com/Jx6lArq11n
— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) September 26, 2022