Oath Keepers members found guilty of seditious conspiracy - CNNPolitics
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 2 years ago • 41 commentsBy: Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand (CNN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand, CNN Updated 2:51 PM EST, Mon January 23, 2023
(CNN) Three members of the Oath Keepers and a fourth person associated with the far-right militia group were convicted of seditious conspiracy by a Washington, DC, jury on Monday for their role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
The four men -- Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel and Edward Vallejo -- were accused of plotting to stop the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 electoral college victory, a conspiracy that culminated in the attack on the US Capitol.
Man who rested feet on desk in Pelosi's office on Jan. 6 found guilty on 8 counts
The convictions are another win for the Justice Department who brought the rare charge against members of the far-right militia early last year. After a 10-week trial this fall, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes as well as Kelly Meggs, a leader of the group in Florida, were the first of the group to be found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
A sentencing date was not set, but all four defendants will be placed on house arrest until they are sentenced, Judge Amit Mehta said Monday. They cannot have firearms in their house, and all four will have limitations on their phone communications and internet use.
The defendants on trial in the case were Minuta, an Oath Keeper from New Jersey who prosecutors described as one of Rhodes' "most trusted men"; Hackett, an alleged recruiter for the Florida Oath Keeper who prosecutors said is talented at hiding his identity; Moerschel, an alleged part of the so-called stack formation that prosecutors said acted as a "battering ram," pushing through the mob and into the Capitol; and Vallejo, one of the alleged leaders of the armed quick reaction force, who prosecutors said called for "guerilla war" the morning of January 6.
In addition to the seditious conspiracy charges, Minuta, Hackett, Moerschel and Vallejo were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, as well as conspiracy to prevent a member of Congress from discharging their official duties.
Hackett was found guilty of tampering with documents or proceedings.
Hackett and Moerschel were found not guilty of destruction of government property. Minuta and Moerschel were found not guilty of tampering with documents or proceedings.
Jury deliberations in the case began last week, after prosecutor Louis Manzo, during his closing arguments, walked the jury through weeks of trial testimony and told the jurors to ignore defense attorneys' arguments that the four men are innocent because they were merely following Rhodes.
'Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys,' Proud Boys member said on Jan. 6, prosecutors say as trial begins
In their own closing arguments, defense attorneys for the four men argued that their clients had not conspired together to stop a Biden presidency, saying that the government's case presented no proof of a plan to storm the US Capitol. The attorneys also repeatedly argued that not only was the government manipulating evidence but that there was no proof of a conspiracy between the group, saying that while the jury might find statements from their clients offensive, that wasn't reason to convict them of plotting to stop the certification of the election.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report. View on CNN Outbrain
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Who did Oath Keepers seditiously conspire with?
I don't know. Could it have possibly been TRUMP?
They definitely got him now, not like those other 300+ times they were sure they had him, they really really REALLY have him this time.
Even Trump now knows that his goose is well and truly cooked.
A lifetime as a serial criminal has finally caught up to him.
His far-right wing friends are kicking him under the bus.
His money and fame will no longer buy him out from under his many sins.
Hedge that bet. 'The Trump' might flee.
heh, "shot while trying to escape" would be poetic justice for any of those neo-nazis...
What are you rhyming escape with?
There ya go, death wishing again.
With each other?
Yeah, when you get on that beer bus to an out of state football game
you can only blame each other, right?
And yourself.
Trump was not mentioned in the article and has yet to be charged with any crime.
That is because their weren't any Trump flags or Trump merchandise at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
s/
they conspired with each other
Well, Minuta, Hackett, Moerschel and Vallejo were found guilty of Seditious Conspiracy, but their greatest crime/blunder is giving even a microscopic/vacuous shred of credence to a grifting liar, cheat, fraud and coward. Some people are incredibly stupid.
They are the perfect example of suicidal lemmings following the con man...Dumb as a fricking rock, hope they get the max sentence.
I disagree with the "suicidal lemmings following a con man" portion. I don't think that describes these men. Of course, I don't know these men personally, so I can't say with certainty. However, my expectation would be that these men see a problem with our country and want to do something about it.
That, in itself is not a bad thing. If there is a problem, then one should want to fix it. However, I think that if this was the case for these men, it was secondary to their image of themselves as some sort of heroic revolutionaries fighting the forces of evil. That is, their image of themselves took precedence over their actual cause. If there is any truth to that then Trump's relevance was simply that they imagined him as a path towards actually realizing their image of themselves. In other words, Trump didn't make them what they were, they simply saw Trump as an excuse to do what they wanted to do all along. Their desire to be the heroes they imagined themselves to be worked Trump into their fantasy at the expense of rationality and so, they did what they did on Jan 6th, believing it would somehow work out, probably because of the strength of their belief/delusion of their cause.
Put another way, they wanted to live their fantasy so badly that they used any excuse at all, including their delusions about Trump and what he could do, to take the actions that they did. Trump may have been the catalyst, but Trump didn't make them what they were. They were that already.
What they see as a problem with our country is democracy and what they want to do about it is overthrow it and impose their version of fascism.
Can you provide evidence for your statement? O, at lest, reasoning?
True, Trump did not 'make them what they are', but he gave them an excuse.
Follow the money.
Explain, please.
There is a plethora of information, scholarly and journalistic, about far-right, anti-government militia groups. If you are truly interested in becoming informed, I suggest you begin with the excellent book "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America" by Kathleen Belew, Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. Once you have read "Bring the War Home", I would be happy to make other recommendations.
their attorneys all claimed that they were told by trump to come to DC. I wonder who's paying their legal bills, trump? they all definitely need to be wearing ankle monitors until they're sentenced. hopefully these seditious traitors realize the gravity of their actions while on home confinement awaiting sentencing and use the opportunity to spare the US taxpayers the cost of warehousing unamerican scum.
sounds like that book will probably have to wait until teavangelicals are done revising the bible.
The problem is that what you consider to be far-right wing militia groups are not homogeneous. Nor are they all far-right wing. Just as not all far-left wing groups are homogeneous or even far-left wing. Concerning being informed, I'm sufficiently informed to know that much of academia and journalism considers anything on the conservative scale to be one and the same with the far-right.
So, to my mind, you're not providing anything other than generalizations to support your claim. That doesn't mean you aren't right. They may very well be fascist in nature, but this isn't actual evidence of intent.
Your statement indicates that, unfortunately, you may be misinformed. If you're not interested in a truly excellent and well-documented study, that could tell us something about your apparent pre-existing bias.
They were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Conspiracy to engage in insurrection against the government. You may ascribe benign or altruistic motivations to their criminal misconduct. I don't, and neither did the jury that heard and considered all of the evidence presented during the trial.
I don't ascribe anything to them. I haven't even followed their trial. If they committed seditious conspiracy I'm all for them spending time in prison. I don't agree with what happened on Jan 6th. There was no excuse for it given the circumstances. And not just them, but everyone who was there. Not that I think everyone there was guilty of the same crime. They weren't. For the most part, they were just being idiots.
As for your 'excellent and well-documented study, I have no doubt it is, for the segment of society that it applies to. The problem is, in my view, the left is trying to apply it to everyone not on the left.
Bias towards what, exactly?
Do not understand funding, especially dark, secret, foreign or otherwise?
Well okay. How about the chants, "We love Trump" or "Hang Mike Pence?"
Call Lauren Boebert. Maybe she has the 'facts' you can digest easier.
Appears as if you stumbled into a maga circle jerk.
Okay, I get it. You're in your own world. Fine. I don't intend to join you.
You said:
and the right, as evidenced here and FB and Twitter and Truth Social,
doesn't do the same exact thing?
Yes? And? Are you suggesting that view is simply born of bias? If so, make your case.
Yes, they do. Your point?
You only pointed out that the left does this. That seems to show bias.
Both sides do it. Always have.
No, not actually. What I said was:
There isn't anything in this statement that suggests only left leaning media, which is the majority, is the only one to show bias. It's simply a statement of what I consider fact concerning much of academia and journalism. The rest is just what your bias seems to have added.
Perhaps but, comparatively speaking, the journalism and academia of today compared to that of fifty years ago are light years apart in my estimation.
But this is becoming boring. I made a reply to Kavika because I was interested in what he had to say and, so, replied. So far, none of you have said anything relevant to my reply to him but, instead, have gone down rabbit trails that have no real interest to me. If you don't have any comment on what I said to Kavika, I think I'm done here. I'm tired of arguing with people who are only interested in arguing memes and ideologies.
And yet, here you are again, doing exactly that.
As far as Kavika and your comment about these 4 numbskulls.
They are the product of the hand of the gun culture that treats Rambo like a real
hero and offers everyone of them the fantasy of being the next Jack Ryan
while being victims of whatever imaginary migrant is keeping them from
reaching making America great again. Hollywood and Second Amendment
worshippers without a clue.
Quite possibly. A bit more specific than I would put it but I think you capture the spirit of it.
Where you go wrong, in my opinion, concerning:
is that what I said applies specifically to these individuals mentioned by Kavika. I don't apply it to all such groups on the right, which would be necessary for your charge to have validity. For example, the media seems to group anything that could be described as a militia as part of a homogenous whole. My comments do not. I personally know of militias that have no political attachments. That is, they aren't motivated by political ideology. They are motivated by what they see as surviving an inevitable catastrophe.
The reason I said what I said about the individuals Kavika mentioned is that, rationally, whatever they intended to do had zero chance of succeeding. In fact, even if they had managed to get to Nancy Peloci herself, all they would have succeeded in doing would be to give ammunition against the very thing they thought they fought against. On some level, these individuals had to have recognized this, yet they did what they did, anyway. As if they were in a video game. The thought that they were taking 'heroic action' superseded reality. At least, that is my opinion.
If they acted independently, how can it be a conspiracy?