WASHINGTON - Stewart Rhodes is feeling the heat.
“I may go to jail soon,” the Oath Keepers founder declared at a recent Republican rally near the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. “Not for anything I actually did, but for made-up crimes.”
Rhodes’ prediction that he might land behind bars over his role in the riot Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol came after prosecutors offered fresh evidence connecting him to the bloody attack that led to five deaths, including that of a Capitol Police officer.
In a March 23 filing, prosecutors revealed Rhodes had a 97-second phone call with an Oath Keeper named Kelly Meggs, nine minutes before Meggs helped lead a group of Oath Keepers in a military-style breach of the Capitol.
While federal prosecutors did not disclose whether they knew the content of the call, they presented it as part of “substantial evidence” of a conspiracy by the Oath Keepers to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election.
Approximately 800 supporters of former President Donald Trump overran the Capitol on January 6, according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Michael Sherwin, the former Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, recently said prosecutors have charged more than 400 people in connection with the breach. Some of the charges remain under seal.
Among them are 12 members of the Oath Keepers, one of the largest anti-government militia groups in the United States. The eight men and four women are being prosecuted together on charges that they plotted to use force to obstruct the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
Meggs, the group’s Florida leader, is accused of coordinating the attack with members of the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, and then leading a “stack” of more than a dozen people in paramilitary gear into the Capitol.
Graydon Young, another Florida Oath Keeper, allegedly arranged for weapons and combat training for himself and others. A third key player, Ohio-based militia leader Jessica Watkins, allegedly recruited members for the operation, telling one, “I need you fighting-fit by inauguration.”
In recent weeks, the case has taken on added significance as prosecutors have focused on identifying and charging the Capitol attack plotters and key participants from extremist groups. Yet conspicuously missing from the case is Rhodes, who has led the group since founding it in 2009.
A former Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate, Rhodes first showed up as “Person One” in court documents in late January when the first three of the 12 Oath Keepers were indicted on conspiracy charges, and prosecutors cited a Jan. 4 call to arms issued by Rhodes on the group’s website.
As investigators have continued to examine Rhodes’ role in the Capitol siege, they have made public a steady stream of previously unknown communications between the Oath Keepers leader and his subordinates. That prosecutors have not added Rhodes to conspiracy charges could mean they have determined they don’t yet have enough evidence to convict him, said Aitan Goelman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder law firm.
“They can show that he was in the mix, that he was communicating with the people who stormed the Capitol, that he was there. (But) so far, they haven't provided any evidence that Rhodes was part of a conspiracy, which is an agreement to storm the Capitol,” Goelman said. “Maybe they have that. Maybe that's forthcoming. But they haven't revealed it yet.”
Jimmy Gurulé, another former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said prosecutors appear to be methodically building a case against Rhodes.
“They are gathering evidence piece by piece through cellphone communications, viewing probably thousands and thousands of hours of videotape, and piecing together a conspiracy case that I think eventually will include Stewart Rhodes,” he said.
To charge Rhodes with conspiracy, prosecutors need evidence that he agreed with his subordinates to carry out the assault on the Capitol, Gurulé said.
“Rhodes doesn't have to be in the Capitol building participating in the siege of the Capitol building. All he has to do is agree,” he said.
Rhodes has denied any wrongdoing. He did not respond to multiple email and text messages from VOA seeking comment.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Until recently, little was known about Rhodes’ activities on Jan. 6. But in recent court filings on the 12 indicted Oath Keepers, prosecutors have disclosed extensive communications that put him at the center of the operation.