Jury selection underway in Oath Keepers seditious-conspiracy trial

WASHINGTON - Jury selection began Tuesday in the highest-profile trial yet stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, with five members of the extremist group Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, facing charges including seditious conspiracy.

A panel of D.C. residents reported for in-person vetting by prosecutors, defense attorneys and U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse for a trial they have been told could last six to eight weeks. Another four co-defendants charged in the same nine-person indictment will begin jury selection and face a separate trial in November.

Confronting widespread pretrial publicity, the court called 150 D.C. residents for screening - nearly four times the number called in a typical trial - and used a written questionnaire to winnow out bias among potential jurors. The document inquired about matters such as their availability and potential knowledge of defendants, witnesses, attorneys and other figures in the case, and their views on the Jan. 6 riot.

Mehta informed prospective jurors in person Tuesday that while the questionnaire asked about knowledge of former aides and post-election advisers to Donald Trump - including outside attorney John Eastman, White House trade official Peter K. Navarro and longtime political confidant Roger Stone - they were not expected as witnesses. Instead, they were people whose names could come up in presentation of evidence, the judge said.

The judge noted that in answering the questionnaire, 59% of the 150 said they had heard of the Oath Keepers, and 55% said they had followed at least some of the public hearings held this year by a House committee investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack. But only 24% said that what they heard about the Oath Keepers could affect their ability to be fair, and 5% said that what they heard about the individual defendants could affect their ability to be fair, the judge said.

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Rhodes and the others stand accused of conspiring to use force to oppose the lawful transfer of power to Joe Biden. Prosecutors say his group called for civil war and staged firearms near D.C. on Jan. 6, when supporters of Trump, then president, attacked the Capitol. A 44-page indictment alleges that the group went to the Capitol ready “to answer Rhodes’ call to take up arms,” and that several breached the East Capitol Rotunda doors wearing camouflage vests, helmets, goggles and Oath Keepers insignia.

Rhodes and others have pleaded not guilty to all charges, which are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. They say they acted defensively in case Trump invoked the Insurrection Act to call up private militias to overturn the 2020 election results and stop Biden from becoming president, and are prepared to argue they relied on advice from their attorney.

Giving a potential preview of whether Rhodes or those on trial with him will eventually take the stand, Phillip A. Linder, Rhodes’s attorney, reminded several potential jurors that defendants have the right to remain silent and asked, “If two defendants testify and three do not, is that going to change things?”

Mehta said Tuesday that he expected the selection of a jury of 12 members plus four alternates could take until Friday, and did not expect opening statements until the beginning of next week.

In pretrial hearings and live questioning Tuesday, attorneys haggled over who should be excluded from serving on the panel.

The judge disqualified 12 of 29 potential jurors who appeared Tuesday, including one who was a former House staffer, another who worked in the local CBS affiliate’s control room on Jan. 6, and another who said he believed participants in the Capitol riot would have been treated far differently if they were Black. Those who still remain eligible to be picked include a registered nurse, a human resources staffer, a retired restaurant manager, a child-care worker and a program analyst for the Transportation Security Administration.

Several lawyers who don’t work in criminal defense and a person who worked as a Democratic House aide in the 1990s remain eligible. However, the judge excused from service one defense attorney for David Safavian, a top government procurement official during George W. Bush’s administration who was sentenced to a year in prison in connection with the federal government’s corruption investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Safavian was pardoned in January 2020 by Trump.

Safavian’s attorney said he generally “favored law enforcement” but thought Capitol riot defendants were being prosecuted and sentenced more harshly than accused rioters who committed violence around 2020 racial justice demonstrations. He said that even if the government proved its case, he would struggle to convict a person if he thought it was “a travesty of justice.”