Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who is accused of plotting a seditious conspiracy to stop the Congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidency on January 6th, was denied bail on Wednesday by a federal judge in Texas, who said the 56-year-old was a flight risk because he had installed “elaborate escape tunnels” in his backyard, bought “hundreds of thousands of dollars of razor wire” to install around his property, and planted “unregistered cars in the woods” surrounding his Montana home “in case the feds ever came to his door.”
In her 17-page decision, Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson wrote that Rhodes’ estranged wife, Tasha Adams, made these revelations in a hearing earlier this week. Adams testified that Rhodes lived in fear of being “picked up by the feds.”
Johnson also expressed concern that Adams accused Rhodes of domestic violence. The judge wrote:
Ms. Adams testified that throughout their marriage, Defendant would often brandish firearms in the family home to control her behavior and that Defendant would physically abuse his children under the guise of participating in ‘martial arts practices.’ Adams described one such instance where Defendant choked the couple’s daughter; the couple’s adult son intervened to forcibly remove Defendant’s grip.
Johnson added: “Ms. Adams testified that….her greatest fear was that Defendant would murder Ms. Adams and the children before committing suicide.”
Rhodes will now remain in custody pending his trial on seditious conspiracy, an extremely rare charge. His trial is tentatively scheduled for July 2022.
In the interim, Johnson said he could provide testimony to the House committee probing the January 6th riot.
“The evidence shows Defendant orchestrated a large-scale attack on the federal government with the purpose of intimidating, by violence, federal officials and disrupting official governmental proceedings incident to the transfer of power in the Executive Branch following a national election,” Johnson wrote.
POLITICO provides background:
Prosecutors say Rhodes was the mastermind of a plot to violently prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, developing plans to halt the certification of the election that included amassing a weapons arsenal just outside of Washington. That “quick reaction force” was allegedly housed at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va., but was never deployed to the Capitol. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen Oath Keepers breached the Capitol alongside the pro-Trump mob that overwhelmed police, with some exchanging messages that they were seeking out Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Rhodes and 10 of the other Oath Keepers face the seditious conspiracy charge, while several other Oath Keepers are charged with an obstruction conspiracy. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said at a hearing on Tuesday that he planned to hold a jury trial in April for the latter group of Oath Keepers. The judge is planning other trials for batches of Oath Keepers affiliates in July and September.
