Stewart Rhodes and his band of extremists were prepared to go to war were prepared to go to war to stop Joe Biden from becoming president, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told jurors.
The group celebrated the Capitol attack as a victory in that fight and continued their plot even after Biden’s electoral victory was certified, Nestler alleged.
Defense attorneys accused prosecutors of cherry-picking comments from messages and videos and said the government has no evidence there ever was any plan to attack the Capitol. Rhodes’ attorney said his client will take the stand and show that the Oath Keepers had merely been preparing for orders they expected from Trump but never came.
In the Oath Keepers case, prosecutors will try to prove that their actions were not a spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage but part of a detailed, drawn-out plot to stop Biden from entering the White House. The Oath Keepers organized training, including one session on “unconventional warfare.” Before coming to Washington, they stashed “weapons of war” at a Virginia hotel to serve as “quick reaction force” that could get guns into the capital quickly if necessary, the prosecutor said.
The government’s first witness was a FBI agent, who responded on Jan. 6 to help rescue senators. He described lawmakers crying, broken doors and windows and a scene that “looked like a bomb had gone off.”
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