The MeidasTouch Podcast - Oath Keepers Leaders GUILTY of Seditious Conspiracy

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

A Washington D.C. Federal Jury just found Oath Keepers Leaders Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs GUILTY of Seditious Conspiracy. All five Oath Keepers on trial were found GUILTY of Obstruction. MeidasTouch Host Ben Meiselas reports. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario i'm ben mysellis from the Midas touch network and this is a breaking news alert from federal court in Washington, D.C. The leader of the Oath Keepers, Stuart Rhodes, has been found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy as well as for a count of obstruction, both carrying with it a 20-year prison sentence. This seditious conspiracy charge against Stuart Rhodes and other Oath Keepers is the most serious charge that has been filed by the Department of Justice against any of the January 6th insurrectionists. This is the first seditious conspiracy trial to go to jury verdict. In addition to Stuart Rhodes being found guilty of seditious conspiracy, Kelly Meggs, the Oath Keeper leader who was also involved in the same trial and involved in the insurrection on January 6th, was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy as well. Now, this seditious conspiracy charge has been rarely

actually applied by the Department of Justice. It's a Civil War era criminal statute, and it involves individuals trying to overthrow the United States government. Let me just read for you the statute 18 USC section two, three, eight, four, which says the following. If two or more persons in any state or territory or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the government of the United States or to levy war against them or to oppose by force the authority thereof or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof. They shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned

not more than 20 years or both. That is the seditious conspiracy statute for which Stuart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs have just been convicted of by a jury of their peers in Washington, D.C., with a prison sentence of 20 years, which will be decided at the sentencing how many years they will face. And they've also been found guilty of an obstruction of the January 6th proceedings as well, which also carries with it a 20-year prison sentence for obstruction of justice relating to the January 6th insurrection. Some of the other insurrectionists who were also found guilty of obstruction, all five of the Oath Keepers who were on trial were found guilty on the felony obstruction count. That includes Stuart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, an oath

keeper, Kenneth Harrelson, and Thomas Caldwell. Each of them found guilty of obstruction of justice and that carrying with it a 20-year sentence as well, up to a 20-year maximum sentence for each obstruction count. And again, that will be decided at sentencing by the presiding federal judge over the case, Judge Amit Mehta. Additionally, though, on the seditious conspiracy counts, Harrelson, Watkins, and Caldwell, however, were found not guilty. That was the first acquittal of any of the charges brought in a jury trial by the Department of Justice. On the conspiracy to obstruct count, which is another count, Stuart Rhodes was found not guilty there, But Megs and Watkins were found guilty, but Harrelson and Caldwell were found not guilty. And then on the obstruction felony count, everybody was found guilty. So to kind of

give you a summary, everybody was found guilty of obstruction, which carries with it a 20-year sentence. With respect to the seditious conspiracy count, only Rhodes and Megs were found guilty. On the conspiracy to obstruct count, only Megs and Watkins were found guilty. But all are in basically the same boat here, despite some being acquitted on different counts. A very nuanced decision by the jury

who had to really parse through what was specifically going on by the different oath keepers on the specific day. Now, this trial lasted approximately seven weeks. Testimony began in the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. On October 3rd, it was about seven weeks of testimony. The jury has been deliberating for approximately three days. One of the important pieces of information that the Justice Department had presented to the jury was the fact that these Oath Keepers had created what they called a QRF, a quick reaction force, where they had these weapons that were stored at a hotel in Arlington, Virginia, and they believed that they were waiting upon the orders of Donald Trump to

invoke the Insurrection Act to then utilize those weapons to literally go to war and overthrow the government through a violent coup. Those orders never took place and never actually transpired, despite the fact that Stuart Rhodes was trying to reach out to the White House. And so what the defense argued in this case, the defense lawyers for the Oath Keepers, they tried to claim, look, that these were individuals who were just engaged in locker room talk and were just utilizing their First Amendment free speech about their hatred of the government. And sure, while they were saying all of these violent and horrific things, they were

basically just bragging about these things and using puffery and that they were not actually going to engage in this conduct. And for example, like Stuart Rhodes and others never actually went into the Capitol building and other Oath Keepers did go into the Capitol building. And Stuart Rhodes took the stand during this trial. And he claimed that he didn't know that those individuals from the Oath Keepers would actually be invading the Capitol building and he was not involved in that. So a lot of Oath Keepers throwing Oath Keepers under the bus and certain people saying, I did this and it's Stuart Rhodes' fault, and them all pointing fingers at each other and pointing fingers at other Oath Keepers who actually went into the

Capitol building. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence during this trial as well were these reportedly encrypted signal messages, these group chats that were used by the Oath Keepers. And the Department of Justice prosecutors showed this to the jury, which basically showed their implementation of the quick reaction force and that it was not merely bragging about overthrowing the government, but these were serious actions that these oath keepers were prepared to take and were taking. And even though they never actually utilized the weapons themselves to actually engage in the bloody war by literally shooting up the Capitol building, their involvement nonetheless constituted an effort to obstruct and with respect

to Rhodes and Megs engaging in an actual attempt and a plot to overthrow the United States government. I mean, this seditious conspiracy charge, again, has only been used like less than a handful of times and with very mixed success in the past. So the fact that you have Rhodes and Megs found guilty of that, and then you have Megs and Watkins found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct, and then you have all of the Oath Keepers found guilty on the felony obstruction count. And again, all of this carries with it 20 years. So everybody, even though, as I mentioned at the outset of this video, some may have been acquitted on this count, others on this count.

The big headline here is that the main Oath Keeper leaders, Rhodes and Megs, are guilty of the biggest charge, seditious conspiracy. And everybody else combined are all guilty of the obstruction count, and they're all facing about 20 years in prison. So this is good news for justice, bad news for Oath Keepers, and bad news for others who are set to go to trial as well in the Department of Justice's ongoing, very successful prosecution of January 6th insurrectionists. So in mid to late December, the Proud Boys trial, the terrorist group, the Proud Boys, that with Enrique Tarrio and others. Enrique Tarrio is like the Stuart Rhodes of the Proud Boys. He's the leader of the Oath Keepers. He's the

leader of the Proud Boys. And so that Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial is set to go to trial in December, although that will probably start in earnest in January. covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Another group of Oath Keepers are set to go to trial in December. This was like the first batch. There's another batch coming. And this likely means in practicality that a lot of these Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who watched what just transpired are likely going to have their lawyers run to the Department of Justice to try to ink deals right now, plea agreements. And that's probably already happening or will be happening tomorrow.

But Stuart Rhodes is likely to go to jail for like the rest of his life. So is Kelly Meggs. And if you're staring down these seditious conspiracy accounts as well, you are very, very, very nervous and alarmed by this. And who's also should be very nervous and alarmed by this and who's also should be very nervous and alarmed by this is Donald Trump. And as I've always been talking about here on the Midas Touch Network, what the Department of Justice was doing and what they were required to do as diligent prosecutors, despite the fact that people have always been saying, look, go after Trump months ago, go after Trump months ago. In order to build this up, the Department of Justice first started with the lowest level individuals who went into the Capitol building. Then they went to the violent

offenders. Then they went to the terrorist groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. And now they're at that next tier with the handoff to the special counsel, Jack Smith. And when we're talking about a seditious conspiracy, and when I read the statute at the outset, it talks about multiple people. So the question here and the testimony and evidence is, well, who were the people that the Oath Keepers were involved in the conspiracy with? Well, I think that naturally points to Donald Trump as they were waiting for the order. They were waiting for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, and they believe that they were there at Trump's behest. One of the things that Jack Smith can now probably do with Stuart Rhodes and Megs and others is say, look, we can give you some leniency on your sentencing, but now you need to testify against Donald Trump after we indict him. So this is

devastating news for Donald Trump here. And as I've also been saying all along too, when you are prosecuting someone like a former president, which has never been done in our nation's history, you have to dot every I and cross every T. And so what the Department of Justice has been doing over the past 18 months, they've assembled two different grand juries, criminal grand juries in Washington, D.C., which has been issuing all of these subpoenas. They've been presenting evidence there. When Trump has tried to block the testimony of all of his top officials by asserting executive privilege, the Department of Justice has

successfully prevailed before the presiding judge over the criminal grand juries in Washington, D.C., Judge Beryl Howell, who has made a ruling, at least with respect to Pence's former top staff, Mark Short, the former chief of staff to Pence, and Greg Jacobs, the former general counsel, that they would have to be compelled to testify and Trump did not have a valid executive privilege claim. So now that testimony has been asserted. The DOJ is also getting that testimony as well from Trump's former top lawyers, Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, who are, again, they couldn't testify on all the things that they should have. And they said, look, if we get a court order saying that executive privilege doesn't apply, we don't think it applies, but we need a court order,

then we're happy to testify. The Department of Justice did that. That just takes time. But what we're seeing here is the Department of Justice right now having put together one of the most overall successful prosecutions, if not probably the most

in the history of the United States. Literally hundreds and hundreds of prosecutions of insurrectionists. Now a seditious conspiracy, a guilty result by this recent jury verdict against the Oath Keepers. And now they're poised to do things like, okay, Vice President Pence, former Vice President Pence, we have questions for you about Donald Trump. And Pence really can't wiggle out of it the same way he kind of can with the January 6th Committee, because he doesn't really have anywhere to go. What's he going to do? Claim executive privilege? Well, the federal judge, Beryl Howell, has already ruled that that doesn't apply.

That's why you got to be diligent here. And the one example that I've always given is just imagine if Trump was indicted six months ago or nine months ago, and then he's called to take the stand before, by the way, this seditious conspiracy guilty verdict and before all the other work that's been done by the Department of Justice. And then imagine the Department of Justice has to call up a witness like Pat Cipollone or Mark Short and you start asking questions like, so can you please tell me what Donald Trump said to you? And they go, I can't answer that, executive privilege.

And then the judge says, well, they're asserting executive privilege. So have you taken the steps to try to challenge executive privilege in the grand jury process? And then the Department of Justice goes, no, we just had a we had to rush it because, you know, people wanted us to rush it. And so we weren't able to be diligent. You see how nuanced these juries think about these cases. And this verdict is case in point on the seditious conspiracy count, Rhodes and Megs guilty, on the conspiracy to obstruct count, Megs and Watkins, but then on the obstruction count, everybody guilty. The Department of Justice has to be very, very surgical with what they do. They have to be very diligent what they do because you only get one shot

at these monumental prosecutions. So again, horrible news for Trump, horrible news for seditionists, really great news for justice here with the head of the Oath Keepers being found guilty of seditious conspiracy. We will keep you posted with more to come. Obviously, they will now go to the next phase of this, which will be sentencing before the federal judge who's presided over this case, Judge Amit Mehta, who's been doing an incredible job presiding over these very, very difficult January 6th cases, both criminal cases and civil cases. We've seen Judge Amit Mehta's name come up over and over again, and we will keep you posted now as we head into the additional trials for the Proud Boys next month, more Oath Keepers next

month, but a very, very, very tough fought and big victory for justice. I'm Ben Mycelis from the Midas Touch Network. Hit the subscribe button. And in addition, please consider joining our Patreon website. Go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Become a patron. We have exclusive content that you could only get on our Patreon, but most importantly, help grow this independent media platform. We're not funded by any outside investors at all. We're 100% independent. We're only accountable to you. And so please consider, no matter where you are in the world, becoming a patron. It would go a long way. I'm Ben Micellis from the Midas Touch Network on this update from the seditious conspiracy trial against the Oath Keepers, successfully prosecuted by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Until next time. At Midas Touch, we are unapologetically pro-democracy and we demand justice and accountability. That's why we're spreading our message to convict 45. That's right. Gear up right now with your convict 45 tees and pins at store.midastouch.com. That's store.midastouch.com.