WASHINGTON — Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told jurors at his seditious conspiracy trial that it was “stupid” for members of his right-wing group to join Donald Trump supporters who broke into the U.S. Capitol last year to protest the presidential election.
“My goal was to make sure nobody got wrapped up in that,” Rhodes said Monday in a Washington courtroom. He claimed the group’s “mission” on Jan. 6, 2021, was to provide security at Trump events and speakers. Trespassing at the building “opened the door for our political enemies to persecute us,” he said.
After taking the stand in his own defense on Friday, Rhodes detailed his farmworker upbringing, the founding of the Oath Keepers and his reasons for believing the 2020 election was unconstitutional. Prosecutors have cast Rhodes as the ringleader in an alleged conspiracy to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
