DOJ Seeks 25-Year Prison Sentence for January 5th Political Prisoner

24

Grief stricken, not just for this young man and his family but for what this grave injustice represents and worse, portends.

The American justice system is gone.

DOJ Seeks 25-Year Prison Sentence for Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes

By Joseph M. Hanneman, The Epoch Times, May 6, 2023:

Story continues below advertisement

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a 25-year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III after he was found guilty at trial of seditious conspiracy and other Jan. 6-related charges.

Such a sentence would by far be the longest of any Jan. 6 criminal prosecution.

In a 183-page sentencing memorandum (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the DOJ also recommended prison sentences from 10–21 years for seven other Oath Keepers and an associate found guilty of various Jan. 6 crimes during trials in 2022 and early 2023.

“These defendants were prepared to fight. Not for their country but against it,” federal prosecutors wrote in a filing with U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.

“In their own words, they were ‘willing to die’ in a ‘guerrilla war’ to achieve their goal of halting the transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential election,” the memo reads. “As a co-conspirator recognized, their actions made these defendants ‘traitors.’”

Other defendants, and the DOJ’s sentence recommendations, include Kelly Meggs, 21 years; Jessica Watkins, 18 years; Roberto Minuta, 17 years; Edward Vallejo, 17 years; Kenneth Harrelson, 15 years; Thomas Caldwell, 14 years; Joseph Hackett, 12 years; and David Moerschel, 10 years.

‘Including Use of Force’

In crafting the recommendations, prosecutors applied enhancers and upward departures from sentencing guidelines for aggravating factors such as obstruction and the role each defendant allegedly played on Jan. 6, 2021.

“As legal challenges to the election sputtered, and President Trump gave no indication that he would invoke the Insurrection Act to halt the certification of the election,” the sentencing memo said, “these defendants explicitly discussed the need to use any means necessary, up to and including the use of force, to oppose the transfer of power, and they began to focus on January 6 as a day of action for their objective.

“Then, on January 6, the defendants seized the opportunity to advance their conspiratorial goal by participating in the attack on the Capitol.”

Prosecutors told jurors in the first two Oath Keepers trials that the group conspired to “prevent the peaceful transfer of power” from President Donald J. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Defendants seized the opportunity on Jan. 6, 2021, to attack the Capitol and attempt to stymie the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election.

Defense attorneys said there was no plan nor a conspiracy to halt certification. They said the Oath Keepers did not “attack” the Capitol, although some members entered the building the afternoon of Jan. 6 and rendered assistance to police. The Oath Keepers were in Washington that day to provide event security and VIP protection for permit-approved rallies, attorneys said.

Didn’t Enter Capitol

Rhodes said he was convicted not for anything he did on Jan. 6, but for who he is and for speech that is protected by the First Amendment.

“I did not enter the Capitol. Nor did I instruct anyone else to enter the Capitol,” Rhodes said in a 46-page reflection written from his jail cell.

“And yet, here I sit, because of who I am, and because of what I said—my political speech—not because of anything constituting an actual crime, not because of anything I actually did,” Rhodes told The Epoch Times.

Rhodes, who will be sentenced on May 25, said he was at a nearby hotel on Jan. 6 when he saw television coverage of violence breaking out at the Capitol. He went to the Capitol and ordered all Oath Keepers away from the building, Rhodes told the FBI in a May 2021 interview.

A jury on Nov. 29, 2022, found Rhodes not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy to prevent a member of Congress from discharging their duty. However, despite not entering the Capitol, Rhodes was found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding.

Keep reading…….

The Truth Must be Told

Your contribution supports independent journalism

Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.

Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.

Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.

Please contribute here.

or

Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.

Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding. Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.

Follow Pamela Geller on
Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.

If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
24 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
PlatinumGhostD
PlatinumGhost
10 months ago

One could read this article and believe they are reading about north korea, china or venezula, but with much angst, they would not be.

turtlebrat
turtlebrat
10 months ago

The French Revolution triggered the storming of the Bastille and history will repeat itself here to free political prisoners. I await the punishment for stealing an election that will await joe et al. The Jan. 6 patriots did nothing wrong and the tapes prove it. The real criminals are the dem party and FIB.

TRM
TRM
10 months ago
Reply to  turtlebrat

What drug are you on? Must be some really good stuff.

Walter Sieruk
Walter Sieruk
10 months ago

The leftist rigged politically correct of injustice sentencing of twenty –five years of the Oath Keeps founder ,Stewart Roades to be a political prisoner of the Biden regime, must be a result of viciousness of the part of the left wing and their desire to set an example of that can happen to a person who rightly takes a stand the insidious evil of the leftist /Islamic alliance as well as the Red/Green alliance

This is also a blatant reminder that on Fox News had interviewed a woman who is an American patriot women and was outside at the rally on January 6,2021 for a free and honest national election said that she saw a number of Capital police smiling and even waving the other patriots in the Federal Capital building.

She said that she had a gut feeling and it was a set up. That woman turned out to be right.

It was, indeed, a set up a despicable schemed leftist set up. In other words, it was a dirty double cross.

It was a planned entrapment of a very insidious loathsome lawless low sort.

It was an unconscionable arranged and sinisterly designed disingenuous unfair affront to all genuine justice law and order.

The ancient Roman statesman lawyer scholar and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero had very wisely wrote that “Law is built on justice; where there’s no justice there’s no law.”

PlatinumGhostD
PlatinumGhost
10 months ago
Reply to  Walter Sieruk

Alexis de Tocqueville, author of “Democracy in America” described in 1840 the governmental power of soft tyranny. He wrote: “…The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd…”

TRM
TRM
10 months ago
Reply to  Walter Sieruk

Yeah, right, it was a set up. All the inured cops injured themselves as part of the plan.

art
art
10 months ago

Following the apex of the coming 3rd seal world wide famine this year, the 4th seal war shall see Israel and the east and west coasts of the U.S. and EU a nuclear waste land. Ez 38:10ff; Re 6ff. The frogs will blame the 5th seal Christians and impose the mark of the beast. According to God, it doesn’t get better until all these unbelievers on earth are in hell following Armageddon. Oh well.

Patti
Patti
10 months ago
Reply to  art

Just about the craziest thing ever, you need to seek help.

patdD
patd
10 months ago

FATC: No American loving patriot could ever get a fair trial in DC!!!!! Nothing but ignorant criminals running that SHIIIITEHOLE!!!!!!!!!!

Francois Justicio
Francois Justicio
10 months ago

And may they all be GUILLOTINED?

edD
ed
10 months ago

How many years is the DOJ recommending for Ray Epps ??? Oh, wait….

George
George
10 months ago
Reply to  ed

He had to flee his neighborhood after his neighbors found out who he was.

TRM
TRM
10 months ago
Reply to  ed

If he was part of the false flag operation how come none of the J6 insurrectionists called him as a defense witness? In fact, have any of them tried to claim it was a false flag operation?

edD
ed
10 months ago
Reply to  TRM

You are a FALSE FLAG, TRM….

Andrew
Andrew
10 months ago

If Fascism ever came to America it will come disguised as Liberalism…Ronald Reagan.
FYI… It has arrived.

edward
edward
10 months ago

The CYSTem is corrupt, the demoCRAPS are compulsive liars, and conspiracy within law enforcement, the legal CYSTem, and bureauCRAP criminals is pandemic in most western nations and certainly here in Canuckistan. I can name 4 corrupt cops, 2 bureaucrap liars, and two fake JP’s who have all violated the CCC and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, here in Canuckistan led by the cuck Justie Castro.

vinnynewyork
vinnynewyork
10 months ago

As in any other freedom loving country where dictatorship-like governments were installed, I hoped to see millions of Americans in the streets protesting, and sending a message to this horrible Biden regime (though Joe is a figurehead).

keith
keith
10 months ago

Maybe now our beautiful American flag should be flying upside down until those imprisoned are released.

George
George
10 months ago

The truth is that January 6th was an FBI/CIA /NSA entrapment operation carried out on the orders of Pelosi, Schumer, Obama and Clinton.

Tom
Tom
10 months ago

A travesty of justice. The likes of witch hillary and leftists of her ilk should be the ones getting 25 years.

Stephen Honig
Stephen Honig
10 months ago

Trump must win in 2024 and free all the January 6, who are in prison!

The VIKING
The VIKING
10 months ago

Throw pelosi & schummer in jail with the whole bidin family. Now that would be justice. Our system is so corrupted I dont think it can ever be repaired

TRM
TRM
10 months ago

Geller endorses the violent overthrow of the US political system. What a surprise.

patdD
patd
10 months ago

Why does the headline still read 5 Jan?

Sponsored
Geller Report
Thanks for sharing!