A federal decide on Friday barred Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and 7 different members of the right-wing extremist group from getting into Washington, D.C., with out the courtroom’s permission, days after President Trump commuted their sentences as a part of sweeping clemency for these charged within the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault.
U.S. District Decide Amit Mehta, who oversaw the Oath Keepers conspiracy trials, additionally blocked the Oath Keepers from getting into the U.S. Capitol or surrounding grounds with out permission.
The order amending the circumstances of their launch got here after Rhodes was noticed within the Capitol advanced on Wednesday, set to met with GOP lawmakers to advocate for the discharge of one other Oath Keeper shortly after his personal launch from jail.
Rhodes was seen within the Dunkin’ Donuts inside Longworth Home Workplace Constructing however mentioned he didn’t go into the precise Capitol constructing.
The opposite Oath Keepers whom Mehta barred from Washington and the Capitol embody Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Jessica Watkins, who had been tried for seditious conspiracy alongside Rhodes, and Roberto Minuta, Edward Vallejo, David Moerchel and Joseph Hackett, who confronted a separate sedition trial.
Harrelson and Watkins had been acquitted of sedition however convicted of different severe felonies. Juries discovered Rhodes and the others responsible of the rare-Civil Conflict period cost, discovering they plotted to cease the certification of the 2020 presidential election by power.
Trump commuted all of their sentences Monday to time served, and each different particular person charged in reference to the Capitol riot obtained a “full, complete and unconditional” pardon.
Earlier than their launch, Mehta mentioned at a sentencing that the prospect of Rhodes, the group’s founder, being pardoned “ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country.”
Prosecutors described Rhodes at trial because the “orchestrator of this conspiracy and the architect of the plan,” utilizing his management function within the right-wing militia group to coordinate Oath Keepers throughout the nation to converge on the Capitol that day. On Jan. 6, he was a “general overlooking the battlefield” as his troops stormed the constructing, they mentioned.
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in jail, which had been wiped away with the stroke of Trump’s pen. The extremist group chief mentioned Wednesday he didn’t remorse the actions that led to his conviction.
“I didn’t go into the Capitol. I didn’t tell anybody else to go inside. We’re here to do security for two permitted events on Capitol grounds,” Rhodes mentioned. “I regret that my guys went in. They blundered in along with everybody else. It doesn’t make them criminals. It just makes me kind of stupid.”
His legal professional, James Lee Vivid, beforehand advised The Hill that they consider Rhodes may ultimately obtain a full pardon or see success on enchantment of his sedition conviction
