WASHINGTON (AP) – Four members of the Oath Keepers were convicted Friday of seditious conspiracy in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in the second major trial of far-right extremists accused of plotting to force President Donald Trump into power.
Verdict against Joseph Hackett of Sarasota, Florida; Roberto Minuta of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel of Punta Gorda, Florida; and Edward Vallejo of Phoenix, came a few weeks after a different jury convicted the leader of the group, Stewart Rhodes, in a mob attack that stopped the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
It’s another major victory for the Justice Department, which is also trying to secure sedition convictions against the former Proud Boys leader and four of his friends. The trial against Enrique Tarrio and his lieutenant opened earlier this month in Washington and is expected to last several weeks.
These are some of the most serious cases brought so far in the January 6 investigation, which continues to grow two years after the riots. The Department of Justice has brought nearly 1,000 cases and the tally is rising every week.
Defense attorneys sought to downplay the violent message as bluster and said the Oath Keepers came to Washington to provide security at events before the riots. They were arrested in the lack of prosecutors’ evidence that the Oath Keepers had an explicit plan to storm the Capitol before January 6 and told the jurors that the extremists who attacked the Capitol acted spontaneously like thousands of other rioters.
Richer reported from Boston.