A federal judge appeared to warn this week about the dangers of pardoning a leader of the Oath Keepers amid signals from President-elect Donald Trump that he is considering wide-ranging pardons related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta invoked the case of Oath Keepers leader Elmer Stewart Rhodes III as he doled out a sentence to a different member of the extremist group who had pleaded guilty to conspiring to stop the transfer of power in 2021.
“The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved of his actions is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country,” Mehta said Wednesday during the sentencing of former North Carolina Oath Keeper chapter leader William Todd Wilson, according to The Associated Press.
If anyone would know about Rhodes and the threat he poses, it would be Mehta.
When he sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison last summer — the second-most severe penalty among all the Jan. 6 cases so far — there wasn’t much remorse shown by the Oath Keeper leader, just as there had not been when Rhodes testified on his own behalf at his weeks-long trial.
“All Jan. 6 defendants are political prisoners. They are grossly overcharged. A steep sentence here won’t help or deter people, it will make people think this government is even more illegitimate than before,” Rhodes said at his sentencing hearing in 2023.
He went on to declare: ”My goal will be to be an American Solzhenitsyn to expose the criminality of this regime.”
The comparison Rhodes made between himself, a leader of an extremist group found guilty of plotting to stop the transfer of presidential power with a riot on Jan. 6, and that of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel-winning Russian author and dissident thrown into a gulag for eight years after being charged with anti-Soviet crimes — and by some accounts, credited for destroying an empire — was not well received by Mehta.
Mehta had listened to the evidence the jurors used in deciding to convict Rhodes: Rhodes had, in rapid order, conspired to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election. He assisted members of his network to amass an arsenal of guns that they brought across the country from various states. They planned on using the weapons at a moment’s notice and planned on hauling the guns and ammunition and body armor into the District of Columbia from a stash point in Virginia if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act or if Rhodes made the call.
Nothing would deter Rhodes, the judge told the Oath Keepers leader. The evidence showed he had continued to discuss stopping the transfer of power when Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20. Rhodes’ scheming knew no bounds unless and until he would be forcibly stopped by law enforcement.
So convinced of this at Rhodes’ sentencing that Mehta addressed the onetime lawyer directly: “The reality is, based on the words we hear you speak, the moment you are released, you will be prepared to take up arms against your government.
“Not because you think the wrong president is in office but because you think that is an appropriate way to have redress of government when the law is applied in a way you don’t think it should be.”
As for Wilson, the 48-year-old former military veteran and law enforcement officer deserved leniency, Mehta said. Wilson’s guilty plea had stripped him for life of his military benefits.
But he had cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in May 2022. That plea came early, and notably he wasn’t indicted alongside members of the Oath Keepers initially, suggesting he had been cooperating early on. Wilson was just one of a few members of the extremist group to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy. (Brian Ulrich of Georgia and Joshua James of Alabama also pleaded guilty.)
Wilson came to Washington with Rhodes a day before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. He assisted in coordinating the weapons cache for the group’s so-called “quick reaction force,” and he was one of the first Oath Keepers who breached the Capitol, where he helped force open a door that allowed other rioters to stream inside. Rhodes was never inside the Capitol but was stalking the grounds, communicating with members as the chaos ensued.
Seditious conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.
Mehta sentenced Wilson to probation only for 36 months and a fine of $2,000.
“Setting the history books straight came at a great price to you,” the judge said.