Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes has reportedly offered to deliver public testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee.
A lawyer for Rhodes was adamant that his testimony be delivered live, unedited, and carried by major TV networks, indicating that Rhodes will respond to accusations the panel has been making about the Oath Keepers’s activities in the days surrounding the Capitol riot, CBS reported.
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“He wants to confront them,” Rhodes’s attorney James Bright told Politico.
Rhodes is incarcerated and set to stand trial in a seditious conspiracy case regarding his activity surrounding the events of Jan. 6. The committee has long examined the Oath Keepers’s activities in the days that followed the 2020 election.
Rhodes has three stipulations to deliver testimony: that the panel broadcast the full testimony live, let him appear in person for the deposition in lieu of a remote appearance from his jail cell, and allow his counsel to be present, per Politico.
If the panel accommodates those three requests, he is willing to waive his Fifth Amendment privileges, his lawyer said.
The panel’s public hearing on July 12 is expected to focus on links between the Trump campaign and groups such as the Oath Keepers. Bright said he does not expect an agreement to be reached with the panel before the hearing on Tuesday.
The Oath Keepers is a loosely organized group largely composed of former law enforcement and military personnel, according to the Justice Department.
Earlier in the year, Rhodes reportedly gave private testimony to the panel but largely invoked his Fifth Amendment rights to shield himself from answering key questions.
The Washington Examiner reached out to a committee spokesperson for comment. The committee has cited the Oath Keepers’s activities in the buildup to the riot as evidence that the storming of the Capitol was not a “spontaneous” occurrence.
“Multiple members of two groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, have been charged with this crime for their involvement in the events leading up to and on Jan. 6,” Jan. 6 committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) said during its first public hearing of the summer. “The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot. Intelligence available before Jan. 6 identified plans to ‘invade’ the Capitol, ‘occupy’ the Capitol.”
Associates of Rhodes had stockpiled weapons such as guns and ammunition in a hotel in Arlington, Virginia, before the Capitol riot, according to prosecutors. The group did not bring those weapons into the Capitol building during the riot, but some members had entered the building.
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Although he is not accused of entering the Capitol building during the riot, prosecutors allege Rhodes entered a restricted area and helped coordinate a seditious conspiracy with his fellow Oath Keepers prior to the riot.
Rhodes was arrested in January on seditious conspiracy charges along with other members of the Oath Keepers.
