The founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison for orchestrating a weekslong plot that culminated in his followers attacking the U.S. Capitol in a bid to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House after the 2020 election.
Stewart Rhodes is the first person charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack to be sentenced for seditious conspiracy, and his sentence is the longest that has been handed down so far in the hundreds of Capitol riot cases.
It was one of the most consequential cases brought by the Justice Department, which has sought to prove that the riot by right-wing extremists like the Oath Keepers was not a spur-of-the-moment protest but the culmination of weeks of plotting to overturn Biden's election victory. In a first for a Jan. 6 case, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed with prosecutors to apply enhanced penalties for"terrorism," under the argument that the Oath Keepers sought to influence the government through"intimidation or coercion." Judges in previous sentencings had shot down the Justice Department's request for the so-called"terrorism enhancement" -- which can lead to a longer prison term -- but Mehta said it fits in Rhodes' case.
"If you want to put a face on J6 , you put it on Trump, right-wing media, politicians, all the people who spun that narrative," Linder said.
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