Judging Freedom - Why No Bail for Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes?

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson has determined Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, the disbarred Yale Law School graduate and Army veteran poses too great a threat to be allowed to go free pending his trial.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hello, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, January 27th, 2022. It's about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the East Coast. We recently received word that a man by the name of Stuart Rhodes,

who's the head of the Oath Keepers organization, was denied bail. Who's Stuart Rhodes? What's the Oath Keepers? And why should you care about that? I wrote last week that the federal government had no business charging 11 people, a group called the Oath Keepers, from among the 3,000 that were present at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, with the crime of a seditious conspiracy, stated differently, a plot to overthrow the government by force. I mean, how could 11 people possibly overthrow the government by force? And how could they have done so at the time when, though guns were available to them, they did not have guns on them? Ah, this case is a mess. We know that there were

either undercover agents or undercover cooperating witnesses inside the group reporting to the FBI. We know that because the indictment of these 11 people, one of whom is Mr. Rhodes, is filled with such detailed communication among them and couldn't possibly have been reconstructed with accuracy in hindsight. It could only have been recorded in real time. Rhodes is a graduate of Yale Law School who was the head of the Oath Keepers. why a federal judge has found that this man, who is essentially a legal scholar, is a danger to society and can't be entrusted with bail when electronic bail today, that is a bracelet on your wrist or your ankle, which shows the government where you are at every moment of the day or night, nearly foolproof is beyond me.

The government has overcharged them, and it's going to over-prosecute them, and now it's demanding that they stay in jail unless and until they're acquitted. Well, trial's not going to happen for a year. They shouldn't be punished because of their political views. They shouldn't be punished at all until they have been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. The government has problems with this case. As I've said before, the problems are that an agreement is thought and speech and assembly. Guess what? They're all protected by the First Amendment. The other problem the government has, I just mentioned to you, they had to undercover people involved with this crew. What did the feds know and when did they know it? How did they let 3,000 people storm the Capitol building if they knew in advance it was going to happen? And how did they let five people die in this mass conflagration. If Stuart Rhodes sticks to his guns, and I believe he will,

and if the other, the 10 remaining members of this group do so as well, the government will not want to try this case because it'll reveal its hand. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.