Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who’s serving a long prison sentence for seditious conspiracy, predicted Donald Trump will be “railroaded” and convicted if he goes to trial.
In an interview with The Washington Times from the D.C. Department of Corrections Central Detention Facility, where he is held in isolation, Rhodes said the former president will be treated unfairly in court.
“You’re going to get railroaded,” Rhodes said. “You’re going to be found guilty if you try to go to trial. So everyone’s been demoralized and more likely to take a plea deal and agree to ‘test-a-lie’ against President Trump.”
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison, plus three years of supervised release, in May after a jury convicted him of seditious conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, and tampering with documents and proceedings, over his efforts to disrupt the presidential transition by force on Jan. 6, 2021. Rhodes’ sentence is the longest of any Capitol riot defendant so far.
Rhodes has yet to come to terms with his punishment.
“I didn’t enter the Capitol, but I was still found guilty by a D.C. jury of obstructing an official proceeding even though I didn’t even go inside,” he said in the interview. “And I was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, although they had zero evidence of an actual plan. They just used my speech. It will be the same thing with President Trump.”
Trump has not weighed in on Rhodes’ prediction.
Prosecutors argued Rhodes prepared his followers to engage in conflict at the Capitol, observing the chaos like a “battlefield general” from outside the building.
During his sentencing hearing, Rhodes claimed he was a “political prisoner.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected his denial and said he presents an “ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic.”
Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is reportedly nearing the end of his investigation into efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election result.
Trump was indicted last month by a federal grand jury on Espionage Act charges for removing top secret documents from the White House following the end of his term.
Trump is also facing a separate investigation in Georgia over his efforts to try to block Joe Biden’s 2020 win in the state.