ABC
Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison for his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — the longest sentence handed down to date and the first for a charge of seditious conspiracy.
“You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and to the very fabric of our democracy,” said U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, characterizing Rhodes as a uniquely powerful driver of the threat to democracy that day. “You are smart, you are compelling, and you are charismatic. Frankly, that is what makes you dangerous.”
Rhodes, 58, is the first of 14 Jan. 6 defendants, including nine Oath Keepers, to face sentencing after being convicted of — or pleading guilty to — seditious conspiracy. Enrique Tarrio, who was the national chairman of the far-right Proud Boys on Jan. 6, was convicted of the charge earlier this month.
Prosecutors say Rhodes masterminded a weekslong effort to derail the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, marshaling dozens of allies across the country to descend on Washington on Jan. 6. Rhodes and his allies spent weeks pressing Trump to forcibly prevent Congress from certifying the election — and girded for violence even if Trump refused. Rhodes also encouraged Oath Keepers to assemble an arsenal of weapons just outside of Washington that could be deployed to the city if necessary.
Ultimately dozens of members of the Oath Keepers surged with the pro-Trump mob into the Capitol, while Rhodes rallied them from outside the building.
It was a brazen attack that threatened the most important and vulnerable part of American democracy, prosecutors said, urging Mehta to issue a sentence of at least 25 years.
Mehta largely agreed with prosecutors’ characterization of Rhodes’ role as a leader of the Jan. 6 attack and agreed to classify his crimes as an act of terrorism against the government, a categorization that sharply increased his ultimate sentence.
“What we cannot have — we absolutely cannot have — is a group of citizens who because they didn’t like the outcome [of the 2020 election] were then prepared to take up arms in order to foment a revolution,” Mehta said. “That’s what you did.
As he prepared to be sentenced, a defiant Rhodes lashed out at the case against him, casting himself as a martyr in a war for the survival of America — the same message prosecutors say Rhodes used…
