Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III testified on Dec. 19 in an Alaska civil trial that he never ordered anyone into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and that the nearly yearlong federal prosecution of him amounts to “persecution by our political enemies.”
Speaking from the Alexandria City Jail in Virginia, Rhodes told an Alaska Superior Court judge that the U.S. Department of Justice went after him because he exercised his constitutionally protected free speech.
Rhodes and one co-defendant were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Three others were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but found guilty on other Jan. 6-related counts….