The founder of the Oath Keepers and four associates are on trial for the Capitol incursion on charges that include seditious conspiracy — a rarely used Civil War-era accusation.
Prosecutors claim this Civil War-era charge strikes to the heart of what happened that day, which they believe was a coordinated effort to stop the transfer of presidential power.
Stewart Rhodes and his followers are the first Jan. 6 defendants to stand trial on such a charge.
he Justice Department hasn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade and hasn’t won a guilty verdict since the 1995 prosecution of Islamic militants who plotted to bomb New York City landmarks.
Prosecutors claim Rhodes and the Oath Keepers spent weeks preparing to stop Biden from becoming president. Rhodes, a Texan, allegedly recruited members to come to Washington, amassed weapons and organized armed teams to be on standby outside the city in case they were needed, authorities say.
The plot came to a head, according to prosecutors, on Jan. 6 when Oath Keepers were captured on camera moving through the crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters and moving into the Capitol in military-style stack formation.