
Friends,
Memorial Day is an occasion to honor those who have given their lives so that our democracy can endure. It’s also an occasion to reaffirm our commitment to holding accountable those who have threatened its endurance.
Last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy against the United States. Rhodes is the first January 6 defendant sentenced under that charge, and he received the longest prison term yet in the Justice Department’s probe into the Capitol attack.
“Seditious conspiracy” is defined under law (18 U.S. Code Section 2384) as “conspir[ing] 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.”
Federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Rhodes “proposed that he and other Oath Keepers members and affiliates forcibly oppose the lawful transfer” of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. They also said that Rhodes “pushed the idea among Oath Keepers members and others that with a large enough mob, they could intimidate Congress and its Members and impose the conspirators’ will rather than the American people’s: to stop the certification of the next President of the United States.”
…(read more)
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