CNN –
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is skeptical that then-President Donald Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act before Jan. 6, according to new messages revealed Thursday, and was privately preparing to stage his own rebellion. Lyon led by the far-right militia group. .
Investigators obtained the new messages from Rhodes’ phone, many of which are from one of the seven main Signal chats the Oath Keepers used to coordinate around Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors said the additional messages they came from the electronic devices of other Oath members. Keepers and their phone providers, taking into account that T-Mobile kept the messages of some users.
Rhodes had released two public letters urging Trump to use the Insurrection Act, prosecutors said. If Trump invoked the act, he believed the former president would call on the Oath Keepers as a militia to help stop what they saw as a stolen election and prevent Joe Biden from becoming president, according to the public letters. He echoed the same ideas in encrypted group messages with other members of the Oath Keepers, encouraging the group to organize a rapid reaction force outside Washington, DC, on January 6 in case they were called upon.
But in private text messages shown to the jury Thursday, Rhodes allegedly told Kellye SoRelle, who identifies herself as an attorney for Oath Keepers, that she had a contingency plan if Trump didn’t call out the militia.
If the Insurrection Act isn’t invoked “then I’ll make peace with her,” Rhodes allegedly texted SoRelle in late December 2020, days before January 6. “And then I will turn my attention to what I need to do as the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers to prepare for what comes after Trump fails to do his duty.”
The Oath Keepers would have a plan in case Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, Rhodes said in a text, “but most of my focus will be on assuming he doesn’t. And preparing for the worst.”
Rhodes also expressed doubts that Trump acted on signal messages to a close group of Oath Keepers leaders presented by prosecutors.
“Trump goes under and uses the Insurrection Act to defeat the ChiCom puppet coup or we will have to rise up in an insurrection (rebellion) against the ChiCom puppet Biden,” Rhodes said in a message from Signal at the beginning of December. “Take your pick.”
“This will be DC rally number three,” Rhodes allegedly wrote to the Signal group a week before January 6. “Getting a little old. They don’t give a damn.”
He added: “They will not be afraid of us until we come with rifles in hand.”
Just before the building was broken into on January 6, Rhodes allegedly sent a signal message to the leaders of the Oath Keepers with a final warning to the then president.
He wrote: “Trump has one last chance to man up and live up to his oath. Will he?”
Trump never invoked the Sedition Act.
When a mob entered the U.S. Capitol on January 6, some Oath Keepers expressed doubts about storming the building, complaining in the signal chat of the group’s leaders that the mob was “stupid enough to act like ANTIFA”.
Rhodes, however, saw the breach as an opportunity, according to prosecutors.
SoRelle responded on behalf of Rhodes; “We’re acting like the founding fathers. It can’t be resisted. Stewart and I agree.”
SoRelle, a general counsel for the right-wing militia group, pleaded not guilty last month to several charges related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Rhodes’ defense attorneys have repeatedly argued that his actions on Jan. 6 anticipated Trump’s invocation of the Insurrection Act, and the reason the Oath Keepers did not call for armed backup was because Trump did not invoke the act
Rhodes and four other Oath Keepers are on trial for seditious conspiracy. Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell have pleaded not guilty.