The NPR Politics Podcast - Oath Keepers Militia Members Face Seditious Conspiracy Charges

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Jury selection has begun in the trail of five members or associates of the far-right group over their alleged role in the Jan. 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. The charges are the most serious that the Justice Department has pursued in conjunction with the attack.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, and congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales.Learn more about upcoming live shows of The NPR Politics Podcast at nprpresents.org.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Virginia, coming to you from inside Harold the Bus, a decommissioned school bus that we converted into a mobile classroom and makerspace. This podcast was recorded at 1.32 p.m. on Wednesday, the 28th of September. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still be driving around town in my learning adventure bus. All right. Enjoy the show. Wow. What was that? Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress.

The trial has begun for the Oath Keepers. Well, five of them at least. This is a far-right anti-government group that was involved in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. And the trial of the Oath Keepers founder and several members of its group happening starting this week is the highest profile January 6th case so far to come to trial. Ryan, I hear the sounds. You are outside of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. right now for the trial. That's right. I am popped out of

jury selection to come talk to you guys. But yeah, I'm sitting outside the federal courthouse in D.C. I've got Pennsylvania Avenue in front of me, the courthouse to my left. And just over the trees here, I can actually glimpse a bit of the Capitol. So right where all the things that, you know, we're eventually going to be talking about in this trial transpired. And to be clear, you are not auditioning for the jury. You are there to cover this trial. And yeah, I do want you, though, to tell us about what this trial is about. What are what are federal prosecutors accusing the Oath Keepers of doing? Well, the the five people who are going on trial here are among 11 individuals who are either members of the Oath Keepers or have ties to the group who have been charged with a number

of crimes involved in January 6th, connected to January 6th. But the biggest one that we really should talk about is seditious conspiracy. The government accuses them of conspiring to use force to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president. They say that they recruited, they trained, they organized to come to Washington, D.C. to try to block Congress's certification of the Electoral College count on January 6th. Prosecutors say that these defendants had weapons stashed at a hotel just across the river from D.C. in Virginia, ready to ferry downtown towards the Capitol into downtown D.C. if they decided that they were necessary. Several members, several of the defendants actually entered the Capitol or are accused of entering the Capitol. There are videos that put them inside. But the fact that they are charged here with sedition, with attempting to use force to block

the execution of U.S. law, in this case, the peaceful transfer of power, is a big charge. It's the biggest, most important charge that we've seen come out of the January 6th investigation so far. Yeah. Claudia, as folks heard on the podcast yesterday, these trials are happening as there is an ongoing congressional investigation that you've been covering closely. There was supposed to be a hearing today, but that has been postponed. What are you expecting from Congress on this front? Right. So yes, that hearing was postponed, they said, because of Hurricane Ian. And so we're supposed to hear about a new date for a next hearing sometime soon, is what the leaders of the Jan 6 panel said yesterday. So we're going to see what more evidence they want to present. In the meantime, when they launched their blockbuster hearings earlier this summer,

sharing some of their investigative findings, one of the central issues they touched on was this concern about seditious conspiracy and pointing to these Justice Department cases where folks were criminally charged with this, some pleading guilty. And as Ryan is talking about now, some of these more high profile cases that are now headed to trial. And so one interesting argument that we heard Democrats on the panel make, as well as the vice chair, Republican Liz Cheney, is that others should be considered for these charges as well for seditious conspiracy. Others higher up the ladder, as Ryan was mentioning, some of these Oath Keepers were said to be providing security for some of these Trump allies, advisors, what have you. And so that's one thing that you can hear from the committee, even probably to this day, and maybe in the coming months at others, such as those who were seen with the

Oath Keepers that got security that coordinated should be considered that were closer to the former president and maybe even the former president himself. It's interesting kind of the overlap between the January 6th committee and its hearings and what's going on in federal court here in the sense that, you know, we've had jury selection that started yesterday in the Oath Keepers trial. And one of the things that potential jurors are being asked is whether they have watched the January 6th hearings, how much attention they paid to news coverage of the January 6th hearings and the events of January 6th writ large. And interestingly, a lot of them have in some way,

shape, or form paid attention to it. These are, of course, all D.C. residents, so they are people who kind of felt the effects of January 6th itself or the aftershocks. But ultimately, even though these potential jurors have in some way, shape, or form perhaps been affected by January 6th, the judge presiding over this case has made the distinction between having experienced January 6th as a resident of D.C. but being able to set all of those emotions and preconceptions aside and judge this case and the evidence that's presented against these five defendants on the merits. And that's something that's being asked, of course, of every juror and potential juror. And we'll see if we can get to the required number that we need in the next couple of days here.

Yeah, I think it's interesting, Ryan, that you raise that point. When I've talked to constituents or voters around the country, when I've traveled, in some cases, for example, I was in Texas earlier this summer, and I'll ask folks, because I've been covering this, have you been tracking the January 6th hearings? More than once I've heard what January 6th hearings. So it just plays out differently in different parts of the country, and it's going to be a popular topic or more popular in the town we're in now. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and when we get back, more on the prosecutions coming out of January 6th. And we're back. And Ryan, with this Oath Keepers case, what kind of punishment could these defendants face if they're convicted?

So just on the central charge in this case, which is the one that everyone's really paying attention to here, on the central charge of seditious conspiracy, that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, which is a significant sentence. The government's track record in bringing seditious conspiracy cases is mixed. They don't bring this charge a lot, only around a half dozen times in the past 40 years or so. And the most recent case was in 2010 against a militia in Michigan. And the government didn't win that case. The judge ultimately threw it out for lack of evidence of a conspiracy. And, you know, those defendants never actually took action against the government. In the case here with January 6th, what former prosecutors tell me and defense attorneys say there's a big distinction is that in this case, you have the defendants at the scene of the crime.

You have them on video. And so the government may have an easier job making the case to jurors here, marshalling the evidence to convince them that they should be convicted of seditious conspiracy. I want to pull back slightly from this particular case to the sort of the broader spectrum of prosecutions around January 6th, because there have been a lot more people getting sentenced recently, it seems like, and some of those sentences have been very long, including someone sentenced yesterday. That's right. I mean, a lot of the early cases that we saw were misdemeanor type cases, really kind of the folks who showed up at the

Capitol, went into the building, but didn't necessarily do any property destruction, didn't fight with police, didn't attack law enforcement. And so they were getting short sentences. But what we're seeing now, we're getting into the people who have been accused and in cases now convicted of assaulting police. The gentleman who you referenced who was sentenced yesterday, a man from Iowa, he received a sentence of 86 months, so more than seven years in prison for assaulting police on January 6th. As we get into kind of the more serious cases, I think the seditious conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers,

which is going to be the first of three seditious conspiracy trials at the tail end of this year. This is really the big, meaty cases that have come out of January 6th so far. Whether we'll see other ones that perhaps tackle folks more on the political end of the spectrum, I don't know. The Justice Department is obviously still working its investigation. But these cases, particularly this one involving the Oath Keepers founder, Stuart Rhodes, really are the highest profile, most consequential prosecutions that we've seen to this point in the January 6th investigation. Claudia, politically, do you have a sense of how much or in what way these trials and these prosecutions matter? Well, it's kind of interesting seeing the back and forth between,

for example, the House Select January 6th Committee and the criminal investigations, the public conversation, if you will, between this committee and the criminal investigations, the public conversation, if you will, between this committee and the Justice Department, pressure from the committee to see the ball move forward in terms of these criminal cases. And so in many ways, members of this panel see kind of their mission to present what really happened, what fueled the January 6th attack, they see that validated with these criminal investigations as they pick up pace and they continue to look at perhaps folks even higher up the ladder, as we've heard about the criminal investigation, potentially involving even the former president. And so a lot of this politically, you could say

Democrats see it as a payoff. They kept hearing from folks as they were putting out their findings that more needs to be done in terms of criminal charges. And this really gets to that point for the committee. And perhaps this is something they can respond to when it comes up with voters who really wanted to see some consequences here. I really think that this is on three tracks, right? Like you've got the congressional hearings and the findings that they have and the political case that they're making. You have these prosecutions and the Justice Department case that's being built and presented. And then you have these elections that are coming up in November

where you have candidates on the ballot who were at the Capitol on January 6th or were in Washington for the protest and for the riot or who were part of the effort to put forward alternate electors. So you have like multiple levels where there could be something decisive that happens, that the voters could decide, no, we don't want those people, or yes, we are totally fine with those people being elected. And that may ultimately say more about how this history gets written. We are going to leave it there for now. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.