The Oath Keepers don’t dispute that some of their members were around the Capitol on January 6, but jurors need to believe they entered the building in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Whether prosecutors have succeeded at this will be key to determining if they win a conviction in the seditious conspiracy case. Here’s more from the Associated Press on what’s come out of the trial so far:
As angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, ready to smash through windows and beat police officers, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes extolled them as patriots and harked back to the battle that kicked off the American revolutionary war.
“Next comes our Lexington,” Rhodes told his fellow far-right extremists in a message on 6 January 2021. “It’s coming.”
Jurors will begin weighing his words and actions on Tuesday, after nearly two months of testimony and argument in the criminal trial of Rhodes and four codefendants. Final defense arguments wrapped up late Monday.
Hundreds of people have been convicted in the attack that left dozens of officers injured, sent lawmakers running for their lives and shook the foundations of American democracy. Now jurors in the case against Rhodes and four associates will decide, for the first time, whether the actions of any January 6 defendants amount to seditious conspiracy – a rarely used charge that carries both significant prison time and political weight.
The jury’s verdict may well address the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, coming soon after 2022 midterm results in which voters rejected Trump’s chosen Republican candidates who supported his baseless claims of fraud. The outcome could also shape the future of the justice department’s massive and costly prosecution of the insurrection that some conservatives have sought to portray as politically motivated.
Failure to secure a seditious conspiracy conviction could spell trouble for another high-profile trial beginning next month of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other leaders of that extremist group. The justice department’s January 6 probe has also expanded beyond those who attacked the Capitol to focus on others linked to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
In the Oath Keepers trial, prosecutors built their case using dozens of encrypted messages sent in the weeks leading up to January 6. They show Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection”.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Prepare your mind, body and spirit,” he wrote shortly after the 2020 election.
Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock has a slight lead over his Republican challenger Herschel Walker ahead of the 6 December run-off election for Georgia’s Senate seat, a poll released today finds.
The survey by AARP Georgia finds Warnock has 51% support over Walker’s 47%. The Democrat has an edge among young voters, while Walker is more popular among people older than 50, which are a large part of the electorate.
Walker and Warnock are battling for a Senate seat that Democrats took control of only last year in a special election. While Joe Biden’s allies have secured a majority in Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, a victory by Warnock would pad their margin of control. Republicans, meanwhile, hope Walker’s victory would put them in a better position to retake the chamber in the next elections set for 2024.
Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy will make a “major” announcement about homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas today, Fox News reports:
NEW: GOP Minority Leader/Speaker elect Kevin McCarthy tells me he will be making a “major” announcement regarding DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a press conference in El Paso, TX this afternoon. McCarthy is here w/ a GOP delegation touring the border & meeting w/ BP agents.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 22, 2022
n","url":"https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1595057884664143872","id":"1595057884664143872","hasMedia":false,"role":"inline","isThirdPartyTracking":false,"source":"Twitter","elementId":"d9cbed8b-f2f7-4583-8084-88f81fdf5fa6"}}”>
NEW: GOP Minority Leader/Speaker elect Kevin McCarthy tells me he will be making a “major” announcement regarding DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a press conference in El Paso, TX this afternoon. McCarthy is here w/ a GOP delegation touring the border & meeting w/ BP agents.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 22, 2022
The announcement will come during McCarthy’s visit to El Paso, Texas, where he will probably draw attention to the surge in migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border since Joe Biden took office. Republicans have criticized the White House for its handling of the situation, and rightwing lawmakers in Congress have reportedly called for impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas, a rare step to take against a sitting cabinet secretary.
McCarthy is hoping to be elected speaker of the House when Republicans take control next year, after winning a majority of seats in the 8 November midterms. But he is scrambling to find the votes after several of the chamber’s most conservative lawmakers said they would not support him.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham will today appear before a special grand jury investigating efforts by Donald Trump’s allies to meddle with Georgia’s election result, Fox 5 Atlanta reports.
Graham has fought the subpoena from Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis for months, but exhausted his legal options when the supreme court turned down his challenge earlier this month. The South Carolina lawmaker’s appearance before jurors in an Atlanta courthouse will not be public, but Willis could use evidence he provides to bring charges in the case.
The district attorney has said she wants to ask Graham about two calls he made to Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and his officials following the 2020 election, in which he alleged voter fraud in the state and asked about the possibility of “reexamining certain absentee ballots,” Fox 5 reports. Georgia was one of several states whose votes for Joe Biden proved crucial to his election victory two years ago.
The Oath Keepers don’t dispute that some of their members were around the Capitol on January 6, but jurors need to believe they entered the building in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Whether prosecutors have succeeded at this will be key to determining if they win a conviction in the seditious conspiracy case. Here’s more from the Associated Press on what’s come out of the trial so far:
As angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol, ready to smash through windows and beat police officers, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes extolled them as patriots and harked back to the battle that kicked off the American revolutionary war.
“Next comes our Lexington,” Rhodes told his fellow far-right extremists in a message on 6 January 2021. “It’s coming.”
Jurors will begin weighing his words and actions on Tuesday, after nearly two months of testimony and argument in the criminal trial of Rhodes and four codefendants. Final defense arguments wrapped up late Monday.
Hundreds of people have been convicted in the attack that left dozens of officers injured, sent lawmakers running for their lives and shook the foundations of American democracy. Now jurors in the case against Rhodes and four associates will decide, for the first time, whether the actions of any January 6 defendants amount to seditious conspiracy – a rarely used charge that carries both significant prison time and political weight.
The jury’s verdict may well address the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, coming soon after 2022 midterm results in which voters rejected Trump’s chosen Republican candidates who supported his baseless claims of fraud. The outcome could also shape the future of the justice department’s massive and costly prosecution of the insurrection that some conservatives have sought to portray as politically motivated.
Failure to secure a seditious conspiracy conviction could spell trouble for another high-profile trial beginning next month of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other leaders of that extremist group. The justice department’s January 6 probe has also expanded beyond those who attacked the Capitol to focus on others linked to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
In the Oath Keepers trial, prosecutors built their case using dozens of encrypted messages sent in the weeks leading up to January 6. They show Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection”.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Prepare your mind, body and spirit,” he wrote shortly after the 2020 election.
Good morning, US politics blog readers. A Washington federal jury is starting deliberations in the trial of five members of the Oath Keepers militia, including its founder Stewart Rhodes. The group stands accused of seditious conspiracy, a rarely used charge that prosecutors say is an appropriate way to describe the alleged plot they attempted to carry out on January 6 to stop Joe Biden from taking office. The trial will be an important indicator of if the government can win convictions against the most violent actors in the insurrection, and a verdict could come at any time.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy is visiting border patrol personnel in El Paso, Texas. Expect him to talk up the GOP’s plan to address the surge of migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border when they take control of the House next year, and criticize Joe Biden’s handling of the situation.
Biden is heading to Nantucket, Massachusetts, this afternoon for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Anthony Fauci and Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha will appear at the daily White House press briefing at 11.30am eastern time, where they’ll likely talk about the threat of coronavirus during the holiday season.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
