The Justice Department urged a federal judge to reject requests from members of the Oath Keepers to delay their trial and to move it outside Washington, D.C., arguing statements made by the Jan. 6 congressional committee are irrelevant to a fair trial.
“The Court should deny the defendants’ motion for a continuance. The defendants’ litany of complaints about the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’s hearings do not justify a continuance in this case,” the DOJ said Tuesday. “The Court has twice denied the defendants’ motions to change venue. Circumstances have not changed.”
The DOJ announced in January that Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and 10 others were charged with seditious conspiracy related to the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.
Prosecutors noted on Tuesday that the defendants have argued for a continuance or for a trial location outside of Washington, D.C., with the Oath Keepers pointing in part to the “highly inflammatory and prejudicial hearings” conducted by the House select committee. The defendants have also argued that the District of Columbia is “heavily-biased” and “anti-Trump” and that this would create a prejudiced jury pool. The DOJ claimed this was “without evidence.”
Defense lawyers have argued their clients have been prejudiced by members of the Jan. 6 committee referring to the Capitol riot as an “insurrection.”
But the DOJ said “several judges have already found that what the rioters did at the Capitol on January 6 was an insurrection,” including one judge describing rioters as people who had “participated in the insurrection,” while another judge said that a convicted defendant had participated in an “insurrection at the United States Capitol.”
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“The defendants’ allegations about certain statements or actions made by Select Committee members or witnesses are inaccurate or irrelevant, or both,” the DOJ told the judge, arguing that “a statement from a congressperson during a congressional hearing using the same word has no impact on whether this trial should be continued or moved.”
The Capitol riot committee subpoenaed Rhodes in November. For a year, prosecutors repeatedly referred to “Person One,” easily identifiable as Rhodes, in their cases against Oath Keepers members.
