Stewart Rhodes

Rhodes spoke of a need to take up weapons to prevent Biden's inauguration and launched a campaign to persuade then president Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, and deploy the military and the Oath Keepers as a militia.

Rhodes called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, and warned that not doing so would lead to a "much more bloody war."

In the days prior to January 6, 2021, Rhodes and others traveled to Washington, D.C., where they armed themselves with firearms and tactical gear.

En route to D.C., Rhodes personally spent $20,000 to purchase "a small arsenal".

On January 6, 2021, Rhodes entered "restricted Capitol grounds" where he directed Oath Keepers members via telephone and text, telling them which positions to take up around the building.

Four days after the attack, Rhodes attended a meeting where he was recorded saying "My only regret is that they should have brought rifles... We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I'd hang fucking Pelosi from the lamppost."

On January 13, 2022, Rhodes and nine other members of the Oath Keepers were arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy.

On November 29, 2022, after a nine-week trial, along with Kelly Meggs, Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering in regard to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes III (born 1966) is an American former attorney and convicted seditionist.

He founded the Oath Keepers, an American far-right anti-government militia.

In November 2022, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering related to his participation in the January 6 Insurrection culminating at the main campus of the United States Capitol complex.

On May 23, 2023, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes III was born in 1966 in Fresno, California.

His father was a U.S. Marine and his mother worked on a farm.

Rhodes wrote about his father abandoning his mother and him when he was three years old, and that he grew up with his mother and her Mexican-American family.

Their conviction was the first for seditious conspiracy since 1995.

Prosecutors sought a 25-year sentence which included a terrorism sentencing enhancement.

After graduating in 1998, he worked as a staffer for Republican Congressman Ron Paul.

In 2001, aged 35, Rhodes enrolled in Yale Law School.

He became dissatisfied with what he perceived as eroding rights in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

Rhodes taught a self-defense class, and his research paper about enemy combatants' classification during the presidency of George W. Bush won an award in his final year at Yale.

He graduated in 2004.

After graduating from Yale, Rhodes clerked for Michael D. Ryan, an associate justice at the Arizona Supreme Court.

As a lawyer, he worked in various western U.S. states.

In a 2008 blog post, Rhodes described himself as "mixed-race" and said he had "American-Indian" and Hispanic maternal ancestors.

Rhodes attended high school in Las Vegas, then joined the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged after seven months, the result of a spinal injury sustained during airborne school.

After attending community college, Rhodes switched to studying political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, while parking cars to make money.

Rhodes volunteered for Paul's 2008 presidential campaign and later complained that political opponents of Paul linked Paul to hate groups and racists.

Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in March 2009.

The organization was launched in Lexington, Massachusetts, at the location of the first American Revolutionary War battle.

The launch occurred two months into the presidency of Barack Obama.

Under his leadership in 2013, the Oath Keepers instructed its members to form "Citizen Preservation" teams, which included militias, to operate in communities across the US meant to defend citizens against the government intentionally letting the country descend into chaos then declaring martial law and scrapping the constitution, stating that "They are preparing to control and contain us, and to shoot us, but not preparing to feed us."

Rhodes has collaborated with anti-government groups the Tenth Amendment Center and the Northwest Patriots.

The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies him as an "extremist".

Rhodes is reported to have taken inspiration from the notion that Adolf Hitler could have been stopped if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders.

Rhodes has promoted the discredited theory of nullification, asserting that U.S. states may disregard federal laws.

On December 8, 2015, Rhodes was disbarred by the Montana Supreme Court for conduct violating the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct, after refusing to respond to two bar grievances filed against him in the federal district court of Arizona.

For two months after the 2020 United States presidential election, Rhodes encouraged his supporters to reject Joe Biden as the incoming president.

On November 7, 2020, after the election had been called as a win for Biden, Rhodes joined a Roger Stone text chat group asking "What's the plan?"

On December 12, 2020, Rhodes spoke at a Pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., along with speakers including Michael Flynn, Sebastian Gorka, Alex Jones, podcaster David Harris Jr., Nick Fuentes, and Mike Lindell.