Front Burner - The Oath Keepers on trial

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

The Oath Keepers are a far-right militia, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes. He’s one of five members currently on trial in Washington, facing charges of seditious conspiracy and other felonies related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors say they planned to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden following the 2020 election. Explosive, secretly recorded, audio from an alleged insurrection planning meeting was played last week in court. Today, we’re joined by Andy Campbell, senior editor at HuffPost and author of the new book We Are Proud Boys. He explains who the Oath Keepers are and what’s been revealed at the trial about how the deadly attack may have been prevented.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Allie Janes, in for Jamie Poisson. So that's the voice of Stuart Rhodes. He's the founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia in the U.S. And that audio you just heard was secretly recorded back in 2020 at an alleged planning meeting to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Stuart Rhodes is one of five Oath Keepers currently on trial for seditious conspiracy and

other felonies, charges related to the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. My guest today has been covering this story. Andy Campbell is the author of the new book, We Are Proud Boys, and he reports on extremism as a senior editor at HuffPost. And he's here with me now to explain who the Oath Keepers are and what's been revealed at the trial about how the January 6th attack may have been prevented. Hi, Andy. Thanks so much for making time. Happy to be here. So I want to start today by talking about the group that's at the heart of this trial, which is the Oath Keepers.

And so this is a far-right militia group. It was founded in 2009. But what else do we know about them and their mission? Right. The Oath Keepers name alludes to the sworn oath that military members take to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They're waiting for the day when they can refuse to obey unconstitutional orders from the government, such as a federal assault weapons ban, which Stuart Rhodes, their leader, fantasizes about happening so that he can be called upon as the government's paramilitary force. Oath Keepers is an association of current serving and former military police and firefighters, all of us who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And so the Oath Keepers have chapters across the country, and they wait to mobilize on events that they see as beginnings of a civil war, which they are absolutely waiting for. Okay, and how would you explain the differences between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who we've talked about a fair bit on the show before. Right. There's a big overlap, but basically the Oath Keepers are a self-described militia

who wants to be called upon by Trump and company to be the military, to be law enforcement. The Proud Boys, meanwhile, are a street gang who are out there mobilizing on Trump and Fox News's grievances day to day. So they already believe that they're an extraditional enforcement arm of the GOP. And so they're out there fighting day to day. But these groups are generally seen together at events, including at the insurrection. And that's why their leaders face sedition trials together. Right. Okay. And we're going to talk a little bit about that in a moment. I mean, firstly, though, you mentioned earlier the Oath Keepers founder, Stuart Rhodes. He's one of the defendants on trial here. And I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about who he is and why he created this group.

Right. He is a Yale Law graduate who worked on Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. Just a few miles west of the Republican National Convention, Ron Paul may as well be St. Paul to his ardent followers who find a common chord in his driving libertarian message. We bring people together with the one issue issue and that is the issue of personal liberty and that's why it's called the Campaign for Liberty and people should feel great and comfortable about it because that to us is what made America great and that's what the Constitution was all about, that's what our revolution was all about. And he really latched on to the libertarian elements of Paul's campaign and sort of captivated their audience and brought sort of the the gun toting segment of Paul's audience to his his own group and sort of created, you know, this fantasy about civil war with them. We will not obey orders to disarm the American people.

And as you well know, the attempt to do just that on April 19, 1775, led to the fighting and the revolution. We fear and we are concerned that the same thing could happen again. We're talking about sweeping disarmament of the American people. we fear and we are concerned that the same thing could happen again. We're talking about sweeping this arm into the American people. And so he's gained popularity as a sort of anti-government, you know, militia leader, where, you know, the guys underneath him are fantasizing about joining a military that they may not be able to join in real life. So let's get a little bit more into the trial now. So we're talking about the Oath Keepers today because five members of the group are currently on trial in D.C.

And so they're charged with seditious conspiracy, as well as other felonies that are related to the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump supporters. So what case is the prosecution making during this trial? Prosecutors, the Justice Department believe that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leadership had an outsized role in not just the execution of the insurrection, but in the planning phases of it. Both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were gearing up for civil war as soon as Joe Biden won the presidency. And in the months between then and January 6th, you know, they were gearing up for what they saw as their last stand for Trump and what they saw as Trump guiding them to do so. They pull bombs up and shoot us? great, because that brings the president his reason to ration up and drop the insurrection act. If we're going to have a fight, guys, we want it to start now while he's still commander-in-chief.

We do not want to waste this opportunity. And so the Justice Department wants to show first that these guys organized the insurrection and then executed it more than any other group. But they also want to find the connections between the top leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys and Trump's inner circle. Who was talking to who at what time? And did Trump's inner circle maybe guide them to D.C. that day? Okay, let's talk a bit more about that in a moment. Firstly, I just want to stop and note seditious conspiracy, like this is not something that you see on trial every day, right? Like this is kind of an unusual charge to be seeing here. Absolutely not. It's a statement

charge by the government to show that we're serious. I mean, it carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. And the last time that they successfully charged and prosecuted a seditious conspiracy charge was, I believe, 1995. So this is the Justice Department saying, you know, this is the overthrowing of the government that we're accusing you of. And certainly, if they get these convictions, you know, this is going to guide the rest of the January 6th prosecutions going forward. Okay, so now it's important, obviously, to note that all five defendants, including Stuart Rhodes, have pleaded not guilty to these seditious conspiracy charges. But I want to focus for a moment on a particularly explosive piece of evidence here.

So this is an audio recording of an alleged Oath Keepers planning meeting from November 2020. And this audio was played by federal prosecutors in court last week. So can you tell me about what information is on that recording? Right. This recording was taken in secret by one of Rhodes' followers who was getting increasingly alarmed about his rhetoric following the election of Joe Biden. Rhodes in it says to the rest of the Oath Keepers, we've got to get to D.C. He said, quote, you've got to make sure that Trump knows that you're willing to die to fight for this country. He also wanted Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would get the military involved if state governments weren't cooperating with the president. And he hoped to be that force that Trump called upon. He said, quote, if he does that, then DC gun laws won't matter.

I do want some roadkeepers to stay on the outside and to stay fully armed and prepared to go in armed if they have to. So if the shoot kicks off, then you rock and roll. And so what this shows is that these guys not only wanted to come to DC with guns, but they already had started planning for what happened at January 6th. And this is all new evidence as opposed to what we knew before, which is that, you know, this insurrection happens.

Was there planning beforehand? And certainly we see now that there was. OK. And I understand that there were two other defendants on the recording talking about what weapons are legal to bring into the district. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. All of these extremist groups have been trying to figure out what to do to get around the strict gun and weapon laws in D.C. And so Kelly Meggs sent a message to members of the Florida Oath Keepers saying, we've been issued a call for action to D.C. This is the moment we signed up for, but it's all going to be hand to hand. Pepper spray is legal, tasers are legal, and stun guns are legal. And it doesn't hurt to have a lead pipe with a flag on it.

For example, when I was walking through the streets of Portland, I was quote-unquote unarmed, but I had my helmet in my hand. Guess what that was for? That was to whack someone right in the face. Wow. Okay. So you noted that this audio was allegedly recorded by an attendee at that meeting. And my understanding is the attendee sent a tip about this to the FBI way back in 2020. So did the FBI do anything with that information? No. In fact, I believe the FBI agent stated that they get lots and lots of these kinds of tips all the time. But I also want to stress that this is a problem, an extremist crisis that's been going on for six years through Trump's rise. These guys have been on a parade of violence throughout those six years alongside the Proud Boys. And so what the federal government has shown is that they just

were not ready. They didn't believe that it was going to get as bad as it did. And that has shown that law enforcement agencies are 10 steps behind the entire extremist crisis. Moving on to another piece of this story, pretty major player here that I think a lot of our audience has probably heard about, which is longtime Republican fixer Roger Stone. So what details are emerging about his alleged connection with the Oath Keepers who are on trial right now? Right. So this is where the web of extremism comes to play and you start to see connections between all of these extremist elements in Trump's inner circle. Roger Stone had a group text on January 6th titled Friends of Stone. And it included Stuart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder, and Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys. This group text had been ongoing for months because Stone uses the Oath Keepers as his private security

and on the side considers the Proud Boys his friends and political allies. I sat down with him last year to talk about or talk for my book, and he admitted to me that he'd been guiding the Proud Boys politically and advising them on how to get out of trouble from their arrests for years. And so what we're seeing now is that those communications were ongoing leading up to January 6th. And so they had that connection to Trump. And Roger Stone was in contact with Trump leading up to January 6th. learn a lot about what those relationships were, what they were saying, and what hand Roger Stone had in sort of getting the word of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to Trump himself. You know, not only with the Oath Keepers trial, which you have a former Oath Keeper who has

testified against his own, but in the Proud Boys trial later this year, you have two Proud Boys who have agreed to cooperate with the government. And I think we're going to learn a lot at that point. One of those Proud Boys has already pleaded guilty to a seditious conspiracy. So these trials will be wild. Yeah, I can only imagine. Is there any concrete evidence right now suggesting how connected this alleged plot was to Trump or to his innermost circle? Yeah, I mean, the communications that were happening beforehand show that there's certainly a connection. I mean, the minutes after Biden won the election, Rhodes texts this mass text group with Stone in it saying, we need to mobilize right now. We need to get on this ASAP.

And certainly Roger Stone and Trump and company have never rebuffed these groups as they've sworn fealty to them. But is there concrete evidence that Trump and Stone directed them to go there and do what they did? Not concrete, but I think through these trials, we're going to learn a lot more about that. Another Oath Keeper, Kelly Sorrell, who serves as their lawyer, was also in contact with Andrew Giuliani prior to January 6th talking about election fraud. And so you have all these many connections that create a web showing that not only were they in contact with Trump's people, but that Trump's people know who these guys are. It's not a secret. So how have Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers been defending themselves here? Like what arguments have the jury heard from their lawyers so far?

There's been some wild arguments, and I guess you have to throw anything at the wall that you can and see what sticks when you're facing seditious conspiracy. But Rhodes argues first that he believed at the time that Trump saw him as a military force. And so their lawyers are arguing this radical argument that, well, they believed that they were allowed and supposed to be there. They went to the Capitol to provide security at a demonstration that turned into chaos. They had a permit from the U.S. Capitol Police. There are also some weird defenses that have gone on already, including that the Oath Keepers were only there to scope out where

the porta potties were on the Capitol campus, just in case they needed to use the bathroom at the time. Obviously, these aren't going to hold up. But I think the plan on the defense is to just sort of create this confusing mesh showing that, you know, the Oath Keepers themselves might have been confused into believing that they were allowed to be there. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I

have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So before I let you go, Andy,

I just want to kind of tie all the threads together here. So, I mean, between what's happened so far in the trial and the January 6th hearings and the Proud Boy arrests, I mean, what more do we understand about how the January 6th attack might have been prevented. Right. Well, you know, when the seditious conspiracy charges came down, we learned matter-of-factly that January 6th wasn't some random swell of violence. It had actors who were giving orders to one another to fundraise, gather equipment, gather people, get down there for their last stand for Trump. And we also know that when Trump said stand back, stand by at that presidential debate in 2020, that these extremist groups started preparing for what they called civil war. And so I think we are beginning to understand as a country that first of all, there is a very, very small pipeline between the rhetoric coming from Trump and the right-wing media and the violence that's committed out in the street at the hands

of extremist groups. And so we're just recognizing that problem. But we also have to respond to it and respond quickly because even though the leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys sit behind bars awaiting trial right now, their groups are still out there. Their chapters are still working as planned and they're gearing up for Trump's next election campaign. They're out there in the street fighting for right wing grievances as we speak. And so I think that the response that was needed for January 6th is needed right now. Andy, thank you so much for making the time to talk to us. Absolutely. I'll come on any time. Thank you. come on anytime. Thank you. All right, that's all for today. I'm Allie Janes, in to cbc.ca slash podcasts.