A key member of the Oath Keepers militia told associates he had coordinated alliances with the Proud Boys and other paramilitary groups in advance of Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, according to new evidence filed by the Justice Department.
Spurred on by the president’s incendiary rhetoric at that day’s rally, Trump supporters, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, rioted at the Capitol and assaulted police officers later that day in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Kelly Meggs, the Florida leader of the Oath Keepers — who’s been charged along with nine others with conspiring to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election — said in private messages obtained by prosecutors that he’d been in touch repeatedly with Proud Boys leadership in particular. He said he had worked out a strategy to confront potential violence from antifa, a loosely organized collection of left-wing extremists.
In Dec. 22 and Dec. 25 messages, Meggs got more specific, describing tactical maneuvers they would conduct with the Proud Boys if they encountered antifa: “We’re going to march with them for awhile then fall to the back of the crowd and turn off. Then we will have the Proud Boys get in front of them the cops will get between antifa and Proud Boys. We will come in behind antifa and beat the hell out of them.”
Oath Keepers attorneys have emphasized in court papers that evidence they were preparing for violence was limited to potential confrontation with antifa — not a plan to storm the Capitol.
But prosecutors say the planning, plus a growing body of evidence that the Oath Keepers executed a coordinated plan to enter the Capitol and rallied to the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, after first breaching the building, suggesting it was an element of their effort.
“Spurred on by the president’s incendiary rhetoric at that day’s rally, Trump supporters, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, rioted at the Capitol and assaulted police officers later that day in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Baloney.
And ?