BOSTON (AP) – There is little doubt that the guardians of the oath were planning anything on Jan. 6. The question at the center of the criminal case against its members and associates in the attack on the U.S. Capitol is: What exactly did they intend? do?
Authorities suggested for weeks in court and periodic hearings that members of the far-right militia group stage their attack in advance in an effort to block the peaceful transition of power. But prosecutors have since said it is unclear whether the group was headed to the Capitol before Jan. 6.
“The plan was to illegally stop the Electoral College’s vote certification … and the plan was prepared to use violence if necessary,” U.S. attorney Kathryn Rakoczy said during a hearing this month. But the Oath Keepers “didn’t know exactly how force and violence might be needed to support that plan,” he said.
Authorities continue to bust a wealth of evidence so they say it is probably the most complex investigation the Department of Justice has ever prosecuted. More than 300 people are facing federal charges and more are expected. The most serious charges they have filed against ten people described as members and associates of the Oath Keepers and several members of another far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys.
But as the investigation has developed, prosecutors have sometimes struggled to maintain a coherent narrative and have had to back down statements made at court hearings or on paper. He has created an opening for defense lawyers to try to sow doubts about the case.
“The government presented a theory (without evidence) that there was a week-long plan to invade the Capitol,” a lawyer for one of the guardians of the oath, Jessica Watkins, wrote in a recent court appearance. “There was no such plan.”
In one case, prosecutors testified in court documents in January that there was “strong evidence” that the pro-Trump mafia aimed to “capture and assassinate elected officials.” The Justice Department quickly clarified that it did not have such evidence, blaming it for poor communication between prosecutors.
After a judge pressured her at a recent hearing, Rakoczy conceded that the authorities “do not currently have anyone to explicitly explain,” our plan is to force entry into the Capitol to stop certification, “but warned that the investigation is ongoing.
“Part of the reason there wasn’t necessarily such a concrete plan that one could expect is that they waited and watched what the leadership was doing,” he said.
Just a month earlier, Rakoczy told the same judge that there is no other way to read the group’s messages about the station of a “rapid reaction force” outside the city that would not need weapons available “in case activities at the Capitol would go wrong. “
“And these activities at the Capitol were a planned and very well-coordinated attack on the U.S. Capitol,” he said.
Defense attorneys argue that the discussions their clients had before Jan. 6 were about providing security at the rally before the riot or protecting themselves from possible attacks by antifa activists.
Defendants can still be convicted of conspiring to obstruct Congress, even if the plan was formulated just moments before they stormed the Capitol, said Jimmy Gurule, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law school professor. the University of Notre Dame. And prosecutors have some “pretty convincing circumstantial evidence,” he said.
Detailed communications in court documents show the group discussed things like equipment and training during the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. One man suggested taking a boat to carry weapons across the Potomac River to his “waiting arms,” authorities say.
In December, Kelly Meggs, who officials said was the leader of the Oath Keepers chapter in Florida, wrote in a message that she had “organized an alliance” with the Proud Boys.. Days before Jan. 6, Meggs instructed someone to tell her friend that “this is not a rally,” authorities say.
Many came dressed in battle on January 6 in tactical vests and helmets. The Oath Keepers leader, who has not been charged, contacted some of the defendants for a Signal chat called “DC OP: January 6, 21,” which prosecutors say the group was “activating a plan to use force in January 6. ”
Authorities wrote in court papers that the group not only conspired to “forcefully assault the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, but planned their attack in advance.” The evidence is “irrefutable,” prosecutors wrote in another document, which Watkins “recruited other people to be part of, trained, planned and participated in a coordinated effort to, as he said, the forced entry into the Capitol building. ‘”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed in February to keep Thomas Caldwell, whom authorities have represented as the leader of the conspiracy, pending trial, saying evidence showed he was “involved in planning and communications with others … to plan a possible military incursion into the Capitol on January 6 “.
But after Caldwell’s attorney challenged that assessment, the judge reversed his decision and released Caldwell in jail. Mehta said there is no evidence that he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 or was plotting to do so.
“The last time we were here 30 days ago, I was convinced it was a plan to run a raid on the Capitol building,” the judge told Caldwell’s attorney. “You’ve raised some evidence that, I think, rejects that notion.”
Since then, the judge has released other defendants and noted that there is no evidence that they assaulted anyone at the Capitol or, in some cases, do not appear to be as involved in the planning before January 6th.
But Mehta on Friday ordered Meggs to stay locked up and called him dangerous to the community. The judge said his communications during the weeks leading up to the attack show he was planning violence on the streets of Washington, even if no one specifically mentions a plot to storm the Capitol.
It seems that prosecutors have also not been able to get into the same page about what to say to the press.
Recently, a judge scolded the Justice Department for a “60-minute” interview during which the prosecutor leading the investigation suggested that some of the riot police could face charges of sedition. The interview of former U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin of the District of Columbia appeared to violate Justice Department rules and Sherwin is now under internal investigation, a prosecutor told the judge.