Stewart Rhodes, the cycloptic leader of the far-right ultranationalist group the Oath Keepers, attempted to cajole the group’s attorney to forward a letter to the White House calling on Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act prior to the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress aimed at overturning the November 2020 election results, NBC News reports.
In the letter dated December 14th, after states had already certified their election results, Rhodes called on Trump in an effort to get Trump to mobilize “millions of American military and law enforcement veterans, and many millions more loyal patriotic American gun owners stand ready to answer your call to arms, and to obey your orders to get this done.”
Rhodes asked Kellye SoRelle, who has declared herself the de facto leader of the Oath Keepers since Rhodes has been jailed on seditious conspiracy charges, to use her contacts through her work with Lawyers for Trump to get the letter to the White House, SoRelle reportedly testified to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack. SoRelle said her contacts included people working with either Rudy Giuliani or Sidney “The Kracken” Powell, as well as staffers inside the White House, although she was in contact with Donald Trump directly.
The revelation, coming the day before Tuesday’s scheduled televised committee hearing which will concentrate on the efforts of groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to use violence to take over the Capitol in a coup attempt, further connects the extremist groups to the Trump cabal’s efforts to coordinate the efforts to have Republicans delay the certification long enough for Trump’s weaponized personal army to intimidate members of Congress to install Trump for a second term.
SoRelle was part of the group, led by Rhodes, who had a clandestine meeting with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in a parking complex in Washington on January 5th, a time when Tarrio was exiled from the city by the courts pending his trial on weapons violations and terroristic acts against a Black church in DC. SoRelle was also on the grounds of the Capitol complex on January 6th, but there is no evidence she entered the Capitol or directly attacked any law enforcement officers.
Another letter, dated December 23rd, by Rhodes said, “tens of thousands of patriotic Americans, both veterans and non-veterans, will already be in Washington D.C., and many of us will have our mission-critical gear stowed nearby just outside D.C., and we will answer the call right then and there, if you call on us.”
While it is unclear if Trump ever actually saw the letters, Rhodes’ intention is clear: he wanted Trump to know that he had a personal army of extra-judicial armed men at his disposal to use as he pleased, without regard to legality or legitimacy, to forcefully overturn the election, or in common parlance, to undertake a coup against the legitimate government of the United States.