Testifying at the seditious conspiracy trial of the far-right group’s leader and four other defendants, an ex-member said the organization envisioned a battle breaking out in Washington that day.
-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this articleGive this articleGive this article
Members of the Oath Keepers standing on the East Front of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The group’s leader and four other members are on trial for seditious conspiracy.
WASHINGTON — A former member of the Oath Keepers militia testified on Tuesday that the far-right group intended to block the certification of the 2020 election “by any means necessary,” stashing weapons in a hotel in Virginia on Jan. 6, 2021, in anticipation of supporting President Donald J. Trump in his bid to keep Joseph R. Biden Jr. out of the White House.
The former Oath Keeper, Jason Dolan, gave his account at the seditious conspiracy trial of the organization’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, telling the jury that the group envisioned a battle breaking out in Washington that day between factions loyal to Mr. Trump and others loyal to Mr. Biden.
“My thinking was you would have portions of federal government that would side with President Trump and parts that would side with President Biden,” Mr. Dolan said.
The Oath Keepers, Mr. Dolan added, were firmly committed to Mr. Trump and wanted to stop the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory in any way they could.
“That’s why we brought our firearms,” he said.
The testimony in Federal District Court in Washington was the first time in nearly three weeks at the trial that the jury heard direct evidence that the Oath Keepers had sought to disrupt a proceeding at the Capitol on Jan. 6 where lawmakers had gathered to certify the results of the election — a key element of the charges Mr. Rhodes and his four co-defendants are facing.
It was also the first time that one of the government’s cooperating witnesses provided a personal account of being in the angry pro-Trump crowd outside the Capitol and ultimately storming the building in an effort to strike fear into the lawmakers inside.
“I wanted them to hear and feel the anger, the frustration, the rage that I felt,” Mr. Dolan said of the members of the House and the Senate who were voting to certify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory. “I felt they were betraying the country and I wanted them to know that and to stop doing it.”
Mr. Dolan’s turn on the stand came after other government witnesses had denied under questions from the defense that the Oath Keepers had a predetermined plan to stop the election certification. It provided the prosecution with its strongest evidence to date that Mr. Rhodes and the others — Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell — had committed seditious conspiracy by plotting to use force to stop the transfer of power from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.
The five defendants are facing two other conspiracy counts at the trial. One accuses them of plotting to disrupt the election certification process; the other charges them with working together to interfere with federal officers discharging their duties.
Mr. Dolan, a Marine Corps veteran who was deployed five times, began his testimony by describing the isolated torpor he was in throughout 2020 — a time when, by his own account, he was drinking copious amounts of beer and vodka to mask the pain of multiple injuries and surgeries.
He described spending long evenings alone in his garage, immersing himself in Fox News and feeling disconnected from his wife and daughter, who were uninterested in politics. He said he arrived at the conclusion that the election had been stolen from Mr. Trump.
When a friend mentioned the Oath Keepers, Mr. Dolan was intrigued, thinking that the group might provide him with companionship — and a place to “vent,” he explained. So he reached out to the local Florida chapter through the Oath Keepers’ website and soon started taking part in text message group chats with other Florida members, using the call sign “Turmoil.”
ImageStewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, speaking during a rally outside the White House in 2017.Credit…Susan Walsh/Associated Press
In some of the messages he traded with the group, Mr. Dolan expressed his belief that Mr. Biden’s victory was a fraud. But he also confessed to a mounting sense of queasiness that he might have to take up arms against the new administration.
“It would be treasonous fighting against what I saw as an illegitimate government,” he told the jury. “I was trying to get it into my mind that I know we would be viewed as an enemy to my country even though I viewed myself as fighting for my country.”
After hoping for “a decent outcome” to the political situation throughout December 2020, Mr. Dolan said he became increasingly convinced that he would have to support Mr. Trump in any way he could.
It was in that spirit of fear and resolution that Mr. Dolan joined the Oath Keepers as the organization went to Washington on Jan. 6, bringing with him an assault-style rifle and pistol. He told the jury that, like several other members of the group, he left his weapons at a hotel in Virginia where, according to witnesses at the trial, the Oath Keepers had set up an armed “quick reaction force” designed to rush to the aid of their compatriots at the Capitol if needed.
Lawyers for the Oath Keepers have repeatedly argued at the trial that the quick reaction force was never meant to be used in an offensive attack on the Capitol. Rather, they have said, the Oath Keepers were waiting for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — a move, the lawyers claim, that would have given the group standing as a militia to employ force of arms in support of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Dolan described leaving Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, near the White House, on Jan. 6 and moving in his body armor with a large crowd toward the Capitol. At one point, he recalled, word swept through the crowd that Vice President Mike Pence had failed to “put a pause on the certification process,” unleashing a wave of outrage.
“You could almost feel the crowd change,” he said. “The crowd was pissed.”
In the days after the Capitol attack, Mr. Dolan said he panicked and began deleting the messages he had swapped with other Oath Keepers. He was arrested in May 2021 and four months later pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstructing the certification of the Electoral College vote.
Looking back, he told the jury, he now considered himself to be “pretty naïve” — even “downright stupid.”
Source: nytimes.com
