Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs found guilty of seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 case
NBCNov 26, 2022
The Facts
On Tuesday, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges related to an alleged plot to conduct violence at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Fellow Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy, while three other co-defendants – Jessica Watkins, Thomas Caldwell, and Ken Harrelson – were acquitted but found guilty of other charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding.
The Spin
Republican narrative
The DOJ has unsurprisingly painted a completely distorted picture of events. If heated, hyperbolic rhetoric amounts to sedition, most of modern America would find themselves charged. Discourse surrounding revolution is deep-rooted in the country's history and culture, and cherry-picking such sentences to claim that a major conspiracy was afoot shouldn't be taken seriously.
Democratic narrative
What happened at the US Capitol went well beyond the realm of political protest gone bad and instead was a coordinated violent attack that the Oath Keepers played a role in planning. The DOJ’s case and the jury’s verdict show that the government can and will hold the rioters accountable and reinforces the importance of the Jan. 6 House Committee's work.
