On Monday, opening statements in the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) case against four Oath Keepers began.
This comes two weeks after Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The DOJ is taking a dangerous and unprecedented step of criminalizing dissent. After nearly two years of trying to spin the Jan. 6 Capitol riots into a large-scale terrorist attack, the government is trying to say that a “militia” planned a coup at the Capitol without a single firearm or explosive. This is pure political persecution and a threat to democracy.
American democracy is under attack, and if perpetrators of domestic terrorism aren’t stopped now, dangerous militias will continue to commit atrocities like those of Jan. 6, 2021. The sedition trials of the Oath Keepers are about holding extremists accountable for their words and actions and preventing violent attacks.