The stories of the four other members of the far-right militia also facing charges of seditious conspiracy help flesh out the group’s role around the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
When the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers militia opened last week in Federal District Court in Washington, prosecutors focused much of their attention on the organization’s founder and leader, Stewart Rhodes.
That was for good reason: The government’s evidence suggests that Mr. Rhodes was the central force driving the far-right group to disregard the results of the 2020 election and to ultimately seek to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power from Donald J. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
But as the trial unfolds over the next several weeks, the spotlight will fall on Mr. Rhodes’s co-defendants: Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell. Their stories help to flesh out how the group came to play such a prominent role in the effort to keep Mr. Trump in the White House despite his loss in the election.
Here is a look at each of them and what the jury may hear about their individual roles in the plot to storm the Capitol and disrupt the democratic process on Jan. 6, 2021.
KELLY MEGGS
Mr. Meggs, a car dealer from Dunnellon, Fla., a small town north of Tampa, was the leader of the Oath Keepers’ Florida chapter on Jan. 6, having taken over the position two weeks earlier from its previous chief, Michael Adams. Mr. Adams, who testified at the trial last week, said he had resigned the post in protest over Mr. Rhodes’s increasingly violent language, including calls for a “bloody war” against the Biden administration.
From an early stage, Mr. Meggs, outraged by the results of the election, seemed prepared to join that fray according to Facebook messages seized by the government. And after Mr. Trump posted a tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, inviting supporters to a “wild” protest in Washington on Jan. 6, Mr. Meggs reacted enthusiastically.
“He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!!” he wrote. “Sir Yes Sir!! We are headed to DC.”
Around the same time, Mr. Meggs claimed to have organized an “alliance” between the Oath Keepers and other far-right groups — among them, the Proud Boys and the Florida chapter of the Three Percenter militia movement, the Facebook messages show. While much of the planning seems to have revolved around efforts to combat leftist activists from antifa, who were expected to harass Trump supporters on Jan. 6, Mr. Meggs discussed bringing mace, gas masks and batons to Washington for the rally that day.
Mr. Meggs also played an instrumental role in the Oath Keepers’ getting the job of providing security to Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longtime political adviser, who was scheduled to speak at rallies on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. Lawyers for the group have used the security job as part of their defense strategy, suggesting the Oath Keepers did not go to Washington to attack the Capitol, but rather to protect pro-Trump dignitaries.
On Jan. 6 itself, Mr. Meggs was part of a military-style “stack” that entered the east side of the Capitol and, according to prosecutors, moved through the Rotunda toward the House of Representatives in search of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Should Mr. Rhodes testify at the trial, as expected, he is likely to say that Mr. Meggs went “off mission” by going into the building and that he did so without instructions from any Oath Keepers leaders.
KENNETH HARRELSON
Two days before the Capitol attack, Mr. Meggs named Mr. Harrelson, a welder and Army veteran from Titusville, Fla., as the leader of his “ground team,” prosecutors say.
But not much is known about Mr. Harrelson’s activities or beliefs in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, in large part because he had no social media accounts and deleted most of his cellphone messages after the Oath Keepers left Washington that day.
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
The jury will eventually hear evidence that Mr. Harrelson brought rifles to a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va., as part of a so-called “quick reaction force” designed to rush into Washington and aid the Oath Keepers at the Capitol if things went wrong.
The jurors will also likely hear how Mr. Harrelson entered the building with one of the military “stacks” and joined Mr. Meggs in search of Ms. Pelosi.
Mr. Harrelson’s lawyers chose not to give an opening statement to the jury, but they have said he had no idea the Oath Keepers intended to storm the Capitol and had only gone to Washington to take part in the group’s security work. The quick reaction force also never brought their weapons from Virginia into Washington.
JESSICA WATKINS
Ms. Watkins, an Army veteran and bar owner from rural Ohio, ran her own militia in that state and joined up with the Oath Keepers around the time of the election. Like others in the group, she was disturbed by the results of the election and considered the prospect of a Biden presidency to be “an existential threat,” court papers say.
“Biden may still be our President,” she wrote to an associate in November 2020. “If he is, our way of life as we know it is over.”
She quickly added: “Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights.”
On Jan. 6, Ms. Watkins used a digital walkie-talkie app called Zello to communicate with her fellow Oath Keepers and with dozens of others who were on the same channel, “Stop the Steal J6.” Prosecutors intend to play a recording of their chatter to the jury, providing a real-time, firsthand account of Ms. Watkins marching toward the Capitol and entering the building where she was met by paintballs and stun grenades from the police.
As a transgender woman, Ms. Watkins may have the most interesting personal story of any of the Oath Keepers defendants, and her lawyer, Jonathan Crisp, said during his opening statement last week that he intends to use it to humanize her for the jury.
While the details remain unclear, Mr. Crisp said that Ms. Watkins found it challenging to spend years in hypermasculine organizations like the Army and the Oath Keepers.
THOMAS CALDWELL
Though he was not a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers, Mr. Caldwell, a former naval officer who once held a top-secret clearance, was intimately involved with each of the Oath Keepers’ events in Washington after the election.
He let several members of the group stay on his 30-acre property in Berryville, Va., while they attended the so-called Million MAGA March on Nov. 14, 2020.
Then, in advance of a second pro-Trump rally in the city on Dec. 12, Mr. Caldwell — a self-described “crusty intel guy” — wrote an “ops plans,” advising his compatriots to bring “striking weapons” and possibly firearms to the event. The guns, and each of their bullets, he wrote, should be wiped down thoroughly before the gathering and discarded after use.
As Jan. 6 approached, Mr. Caldwell took charge of assembling the armed “quick reaction force” that would be stationed at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va. At one point, he considered a plan to use a boat to ferry weapons across the Potomac River to his fellow Oath Keepers at the Capitol, evidence has shown.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
