DOJ seeks 25 years in prison for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes should spend 25 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Justice Department argued, after a jury last November found him guilty of seditious conspiracy.

In a late Friday filing, DOJ made the suggestion for Rhodes and eight of his co-conspirators, including recommending 21 years in prison for Kelly Meggs, the group’s Florida chapter leader who was likewise convicted of seditious conspiracy.

DOJ recommended other co-conspirators receive anywhere from 10 to 18 years in prison, arguing the Oath Keeper’s recruitment of former military members should be a factor in their sentencing. 

“Using their positions of prominence within, and in affiliation with, the Oath Keepers organization, these defendants played a central and damning role in opposing by force the government of the United States, breaking the solemn oath many of them swore as members of the United States Armed Forces,” DOJ wrote in the sentencing memo.

Seditious conspiracy carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, but many members of the group were convicted on multiple other felony charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding.

Rhodes’s conviction is particularly significant as he never entered the Capitol that day, remaining outside but connected to members of the group through a walkie-talkie app as the members used a military “stack formation” to enter the Capitol.

However, DOJ said the Yale Law School graduate deserved the most severe punishment of the group as a leader behind the treasonous plot.

“He exploited his vast public influence as the leader of the Oath Keepers and used his talents for manipulation to goad more than twenty other American citizens into using force, intimidation, and violence to seek to impose their preferred result on a U.S. presidential election,” they wrote.

“This conduct created a grave risk to our democratic system of government and must be met with swift and severe punishment.” 

Rhodes’s sentencing hearing is set for May 25, while other members of the group are set to appear before a judge in late May and early June.

Rhodes’s sentencing is likely to make him the defendant with the longest jail term to result from DOJ’s sweeping Jan. 6 prosecution.

According to NBC News, the longest sentence to stem from the attack thus far is 14 years, given Friday to Peter Schwatrz, a rioter with 38 prior convictions.