WASHINGTON — Prosecutors failed to present evidence that members of the extremist Oath Keepers militia planned to violently attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, lawyers for three defendants on trial for seditious conspiracy said in closing arguments to a federal jury in Washington.
Kenneth Harrelson, a military veteran who helped organize the Oath Keepers’ Florida chapter, only entered the building after rioters jumped through windows they smashed with two-by-fours and opened the doors from the inside, his attorney Brad Geyer said in a closing argument in federal court in Washington.
Geyer showed jurors CCTV footage of his client both inside and outside the building on Jan. 6, 2021, saying Harrelson was only in the building for 17 minutes, and that it “boggles the mind” that he was part of any violent plan. The lawyer called the rioters “hoodlums” and “goons” and said his client was only in Washington to provide security at a pro-Trump rally that day.
