U.S.
Judge bars Oath Keepers founder Rhodes from entering Washington without court’s permission
By
Associated Press January 24, 2025
MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Associated Press January 24, 2025
President Donald Trump supporter Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, convicted on charges relating to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, talks to reporters after meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Nathan Ellgren/AP)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday barred Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes from entering Washington without the court’s approval after President Donald Trump commuted the extremist group leader’s 18-year prison sentence in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw the seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes and other Oath Keepers, issued the order two days after Rhodes visited Capitol Hill, where he met with at least one lawmaker, chatted with others and defended his actions the day of the riot.
Mehta’s order applies to seven other defendants who were charged in one of the most serious conspiracy cases brought by the Justice Department over the riot. The order also prohibits them from entering the Capitol building or surrounding grounds without the court’s permission.
Ed Martin, who has been serving as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia since Trump’s inauguration on Monday, argued that Trump’s commutations mean Rhodes and others are no longer subject to the court’s supervision. In a court filing that bears only his name and signature, Martin urged the judge to vacate Friday’s order.
Martin has served as a board member of the Patriot Freedom Project group, which portrays the Jan. 6 defendants as victims of political persecution. He’s now overseeing the office that prosecuted the hundreds of riot defendants.
“The individuals referenced in our motion have had their sentences commuted — period, end of sentence,” Martin said in a statement Friday.
Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, was released from prison hours after the Republican president’s sweeping clemency action Monday benefiting the more than 1,500 people charged in the attack that halted the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.
While Trump pardoned most of the defendants, he only commuted the prison sentences of Rhodes and 13 others. That means they remain on supervised release and have to follow certain restrictions set by the court under the supervision of a probation officer.
Rhodes did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, but was accused of orchestrating a weekslong plot to forcibly stop the transfer of power. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 2022, and he received one of the longest sentences in the Justice Department’s massive prosecution.
Rhodes said during his visit to the Capitol this week that he’s now urging Trump to give him a full pardon. Rhodes stopped in at a Dunkin’ Donuts inside the House office building in the Capitol complex before delivering a lengthy defense of himself and his actions.
“I didn’t lead anything,” he said. “So why should I feel responsible for that?”
James Lee Bright, an attorney who defended Rhodes at the trial, told The Associated Press on Friday that he’s concerned that criticism of the pardons from judges on Washington’s federal court means his client and others on supervised release will be monitored “with a very heavy hand.”
Trump’s clemency order on Monday led to the release of more than 200 people in federal custody, including dozens of people convicted of assaulting police who defended the Capitol. The president also ordered the dismissal of hundreds of cases that were pending.
Trump has defended the pardons, saying the defendants had “already served years in prison” in conditions he described as “disgusting” and “inhumane.”
Several judges have since spoken out about the pardons and efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection by a mob of Trump supporters. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Trump’s election interference case before its dismissal, said the pardons can’t change the “tragic truth” about the attack.
“It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake,” Chutkan wrote in court papers this week. “And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”
Mehta has said pardoning Rhodes would be “frightening.”
“The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved of his actions is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country,” the judge said from the bench last month.
Rhodes’ lawyer said the judge’s comments show that the Jan. 6 defendants couldn’t get a fair trial in Washington.
Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,000 of them pleaded guilty. About 250 others were convicted by a judge or jury after trials. Over 1,100 were sentenced, with more than 700 receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from several days to 22 years.