WASHINGTON — Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes offered this week to testify publicly before the January 6th Committee – an offer with little chance of the committee taking it up, but potentially big downsides for Rhodes’ eventually trial.
Rhodes’ attorney, James Bright, confirmed to CBS News and other outlets Friday that he’d passed along an offer from his client to testify in a public hearing about his and other Oath Keepers’ roles on Jan. 6, when a mob of thousands of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building. Rhodes is one of nine members of the militia under indictment on multiple felony charges, including seditious conspiracy, for allegedly plotting to disrupt the joint session of Congress.
In charging documents, prosecutors have accused Rhodes of saying the election of President Joe Biden would require a “bloody, massively bloody revolution.” They say Rhodes sent as much as $40,000 on firearms and equipment in the days leading up to any immediately after Jan. 6, and that he was part of the Oath Keepers leadership team that planned an armed “quick reaction force” staged in Virginia just across the river from D.C. on Jan. 6. In May, another member of the militia, William Todd Wilson, of North Carolina, said as part of a plea agreement that he’d heard Rhodes call someone close to former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6 and urge them to have Trump “call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power.”
Rhodes, a graduate of Yale Law, has previously said he intends to testify at his own trial – currently scheduled to begin in late September. While any such testimony would be public, it would not offer the enormous reach of the January 6th Committee hearings, which have drawn millions of television viewers over the past month. Rhodes’ offer to testify was reportedly contingent upon the hearing being held publicly and broadcast by major television networks. The committee has rejected testimony offers with similar conditions from other potential witnesses, including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell.
Compounding the challenges to Rhodes’ offer is his ongoing pretrial detention. He’s been held without bond since his arrest in January. Public, in-person testimony before the committee would likely require the presiding judge to sign off – and it’s not clear Rhodes’ co-defendants wouldn’t try to oppose that move. WUSA9 reached out to multiple attorneys for other Oath Keepers indicted in the case on Friday, but they either declined to comment or did not respond.
Rhodes has also already sat for a deposition with the committee earlier this year and, according to his former lawyer, pleaded the Fifth to numerous questions. His latest offer reportedly includes waiving his Fifth Amendment rights.
Though the Justice Department has a standing policy of declining to comment on Jan. 6 cases, a former federal prosecutor told WUSA9 that any public testimony by Rhodes could only hurt him at trial.
“I would love it,” Neama Rahmani, now the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told WUSA9 about the prospect of Rhodes testifying before the committee. “If I’m a prosecutor, the more a criminal defendant says, the more it helps my case.”
That’s because, Rahmani said, Rhodes wouldn’t be able to use any of his statements at trial. Prosecutors, however, could.
“Whatever Stewart Rhodes says can only be used against him. Under the rules of evidence, specifically the hearsay rule, even if Rhodes testifies in his own defense at his criminal trial, he can’t use his previous statement. That’s hearsay,” Rahmani said. “However, the government can use statements of a party opponent. So it’s a win-win for the government whenever a criminal defendant speaks.”
Rahmani said Rhodes, who was a lawyer himself until being disbarred by the Montana Supreme Court in 2015, likely knows the committee won’t accept his offer, saying it’s “more political than anything.” But if he was Rhodes’ lawyer, he said, he’d be opposed to any public testimony.
“This is like Defense Lawyering 101,” Rahmani said. “The last thing you want is for your client to say anything.”
The January 6th Committee was scheduled to convene its next hearing Tuesday morning to present evidence about the ties between Trump and associates and extremist groups. That hearing was expected to focus heavily on the Proud Boys’ and Oath Keepers’ alleged actions in the days and weeks leading up to Jan. 6, as well as the day itself.
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