United States: sedition charges filed against the leader of a far-right militia for the assault on the Capitol

More than 725 people have been arrested in the attack, which shocked the world.

Rhodes, a 56-year-old former US Army trooper and Yale-educated attorney, is charged with conspiring with others to “forcibly oppose the enforcement of laws governing the transfer of presidential power.”

The charge of sedition is defined as attempting “to overthrow, suffocate, or forcibly destroy the government of the United States.”

The Justice Department accuses Rhodes of working with other members of the Oath Keepers, a militia that believes the US government has been corrupted by elites, to transport guns and ammunition to Washington DC in their effort to block Biden’s presidency.

Prosecutors say that in late December 2020, Rhodes used encrypted communications to plan the attack on Congress, although he never entered the building himself.

He is accused of creating several teams of “rapid reaction forces”, which “planned to use firearms in support of their plot to stop the legal transfer of presidential power.”

Prosecutors allege that Rhodes divided the members of the militias into different groups, who entered the Capitol dressed in riot gear and tactical gear.

The first group separated after entering the building and addressed the two houses of Congress separately, while a second group faced police officers in the Capitol Rotunda, according to prosecutors.

Rhodes has said in previous interviews with conservative groups that the militiamen who entered the Capitol “separated from the mission” and were not acting under his orders.

Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona, was also arrested Thursday. The other accused of seditious conspiracy already faced separate criminal charges in connection with the attack.

Attorneys for several of the defendants have argued that they were present on Capitol Hill to provide security for high-profile conservatives, including Roger Stone, a Trump ally, whom he pardoned in the final days of his term.

Charges of sedition are exceptionally rare in modern U.S. history, and federal prosecutors last applied them to a Michigan militia in 2010.

The group, which allegedly planned an attack on police officers, was acquitted by a judge who ruled that its violent rhetoric did not indicate a “concrete agreement to forcibly oppose the US government.”

At least a dozen other Oath Keepers are facing charges in connection with the disturbances on Capitol Hill.

A growing number of Republicans have questioned the seriousness of the assault on the Capitol, given the lack of charges of sedition or treason. This may be in part a response to that argument, reports Barbara Plett Usher, a BBC journalist in Washington.

Alex Friedfeld, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism, said the new sedition charges were a “big problem” marking an “escalation” by the prosecution.

“Until now, people have been charged for interrupting a federal process or for violence that occurred outside. It is the first time that they have recognized a plot against the government on that day,” he said.

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