Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington, on June 25, 2017. | Susan Walsh, File/AP Photo
By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein
02/16/2022 06:47 PM EST
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told congressional investigators earlier this month that he still considers the 2020 election “illegitimate,” his defense attorney revealed Wednesday in court.
But Rhodes’ attorney, fighting to keep his client out of jail while he awaits trial on seditious conspiracy charges, said this shouldn’t count against Rhodes since lots of Republicans say the same thing.
“There’s plenty of public leaders that are still saying that on a regular basis,” Rhodes’ attorney James Bright said.
Although Bright didn’t specifically identify Donald Trump, the former president has continued to relentlessly stoke false claims about the integrity of his defeat. Trump recently floated the possibility of pardons for those who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of his efforts to subvert the election.
But the argument by Rhodes’ defense team would flip on its head the way judges have previously interpreted ongoing lies about the outcome of the 2020 election.
For months, judges have cited Trump’s continuing false claims to suggest some Jan. 6 defendants are too dangerous to release pending trial. So long as leaders continue to promote those claims, they’ve argued, extremists open to violent action may heed them as a rallying cry to attack the...
Pakistani actress and model Ayesha Omar has strongly denied a controversial statement falsely attributed to her on social media. In recent days, a statement circulated online claiming that the act...