WASHINGTON — Stewart Rhodes tried to get a message to former President Donald Trump urging him to stop the transfer of power shortly after the U.S. Capitol riot, according to a witness in the criminal trial of the Oath Keepers founder.
In a message that was never delivered, Rhodes tried to warn Trump that he and his children would die in prison if he failed to invoke the Insurrection Act, according to Jason Alpers, who testified for the government. The Insurrection Act gives the president power to call on armed forces in certain situations.
“And us veterans will die in combat on U.S. soil fighting against traitors who you turned all of the powers of the presidency to,” Rhodes wrote in the message, which was shown to the jury. Alpers, who said he has an indirect link to Trump, was asked to pass the message along to the former president.
Rhodes and four others face several charges including seditious conspiracy, which is the most serious to come out of the government’s investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Defense attorneys have denied any conspiracy, arguing that the group was preparing for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and traveled to Washington to provide security.
On Wednesday, prosecutors walked the jury through messages from Rhodes and other Oath Keepers in the days following the storming of the Capitol and before Biden’s inauguration. The communications showed Rhodes encouraging the group to stand up to what he called an illegitimate regime. He also urged them to keep quiet about their actions at the Capitol and to delete any self-incriminating messages.
Meanwhile, the jury was told that Rhodes went on a buying spree to stock up on $17,371 worth of supplies, including gun parts, ammunition and camping food, according to prosecutors.
Alpers testified that four days after the riot, he met in a parking lot with a group that included Rhodes and Oath Keeper lawyer Kellye SoRelle. There, the Oath Keepers founder typed out a message to Trump into a phone Alpers provided.
In the message, Rhodes urged Trump to do his duty to stop the election of Joe Biden, whom he called an “illegitimate ChiCom puppet” — a reference to China’s ruling Communist party.
Alpers recorded the meeting with Rhodes because an intermediary told him the Oath Keeper wanted to send a message to Trump. In the recording of the meeting played for the jury, Rhodes expressed no regrets about the Capitol riot — except for the lack of firearms — after Alpers condemned it and told him Trump wouldn’t invoke the Insurrection Act.
“If he’s not going to do the right thing, and he’s just gonna let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said in the recording. “We could have fixed it right then and there.”
Rhodes added that he’d “hang” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “from the lamppost.”
Alpers said he found Rhodes’s ideology too one-sided and extreme and decided against passing the message. Instead, he eventually went to the FBI.
A day after the meeting, Rhodes delivered a lengthy message to an Oath Keeper group chat declaring that it was unlikely Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act. He urged the group to resist the Biden regime and adapt the “game plan” of the founding fathers during the American Revolution to the current situation.
