Oath Keepers founder visits Capitol Hill after his release

SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia, speaks to reporters in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. KENNY HOLSTON — THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Michael Kunzelman and Lisa Mascaro

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON >> Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of orchestrating his far-right extremist group’s Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, showed up Wednesday on Capitol Hill, a day after he was released from prison as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping clemency order.

Rhodes who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in one of the most serious cases brought by the Justice Department met with at least one lawmaker during his visit and chatted with others, defending his actions that day and taking no responsibility in violent siege that halted the certification of 2020 election.

“I didn’t lead anything. So why should I feel responsible for that?” Rhodes said.

It was an extraordinary moment just days into Trump’s new administration after the president granted clemency for the more than 1,500 people charged in the riot. At the same time, judges who sentenced hundreds of rioters criticized the presidential pardons that have freed scores of them from prison.

Rhodes’ surprise visit also came on the same day that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson revived a special committee to investigate the riot, an effort to defend Trump’s actions that day and dispute the work of a bipartisan committee that investigated the siege two years ago.

Johnson said he would not second-guess Trump’s decision to pardon the rioters and “we believe in redemption, we believe in second chances.”

On Wednesday, Rhodes stopped in at a Dunkin’ Donuts inside the House office building in the Capitol complex before delivering a lengthy defense of himself and his actions.

Rhodes said he hoped to eventually speak with the president, but had not done so yet.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in the siege that halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory and left more than 100 police officers injured. He was found guilty of orchestrating a weekslong plot that culminated in his followers attacking the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Trump in power.

Rhodes did not enter the building on Jan. 6 and said it was “stupid” that members of the Oath Keepers did.

Judges in Washington’s federal court spent Wednesday dismissing a slew of cases against Jan. 6 defendants that were still pending. Several judges took the opportunity in written orders to lament the abrupt end to the prosecutions, saying Trump’s mass pardons won’t change the truth about the mob’s attack on a bastion of American democracy,

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said evidence of the assault on the Capitol is preserved through the “neutral lens” of riot videos, trial transcripts, jury verdicts and judicial opinions.