Oath Keepers Convicted

in court. Glenn Kirschner, MSNBC Legal analyst and the host of Justice Matters here to give us a supersized breakdown into the Oathkeeper's trial that just concluded last week with a seditious conspiracy conviction four Stuart Rhodes, the founder of the Oathkeepers, as well as another one of his band

of idiots. Glenn will give us an entire overview into the implications for the verts in this trial and the fact that in the upcoming weeks we have the second part of the Oathkeepers trial that will be taking place, as well as the trial of the Proud Boys. What does this mean for Jack Smith is special counsel that was appointed by Merritt Garland to oversee the investigation into Donald Trump and whether or not he can be tied

to the insurrection. So we get into that and so much more on this supersize, jam packed interview with our friend, welcome him back to woke F Glenn Kirshner. Folks, it has been a long time and I am so happy and grateful to welcome our friend Glenn Kirshner back to

woke F Daily. Glenn, you have been on duty in the courthouse for weeks and weeks and weeks, UM, following the UM trial of the oath Keepers right the the I believe it is five people that were on uh that were on trial, including the founder of the Oath Keepers, Stuart Rhodes. This week, UM, the verdict finally came out and it was a mixed verdict in a lot of ways that I'm sure you'll be able to walk us through.

But what has made the headlines and made you a staple UH for the for this for for this week on every show on MSNBC, has been the verdict that came down for two of the oath Keeper members UM for seditious conspiracy. So I'm just going to turn it over to you to tell you know, to tell us what this mixed bag is and how important it was for the Department of Justice to have this win of this very um UH it is. It is not a

commonly used charge that they have now won in this verdict. Yeah, really interesting and there's tons to unpack, and I'm so happy to be back with you. We were doing this every week forever and then all of a sudden, our schedules went sideways, So I'm glad to be back. So

this really was historic. I think you can you can accurately use that word to describe a seditious conspiracy conviction, the first one for what these people did at the Capitol on January sixth, the first one the federal prosecutors have won since the mid nineties. It is a rarely brought charge, which is a good thing because that means generally people aren't trying to violently overthrow the government. But

you know, it's important for so many reasons. First of all, as you say, it was a mixed verdict, But having sat through all seven weeks of the trial and full disclosure, I think I can be objective. But the lead prosecutors where my former homicide prosecutors, Jeff Nessler and Kate Racozzi. I actually tried Kate's first murder case with her when she was a young homicide prosecutor. I probably learned more from her than she learned from me. This was an

expertly tried case. And Danielle, you and I beat up on the Department of Justice regularly when we believe they need a good whooping to kind of prod them into action. But I think we need to give props where they are due. And this prosecution team and this FBI team presented a masterful case to the jury. It was a mixed verdict, but having watched the evidence, I understand why.

Let me just give you one example. Most importantly, they convicted the two leaders, Elmer Stuart Rhodes, the head of the Oath Keepers, and one of his top lieutenants, Kelly Megs. Convicted them of seditious conspiracy the attempted violent overthrow of the government, or an attempt to use violence to stop the execution of the laws of the United States, just precisely what they did. They tried to stop the certification

of Joe Biden's win. The others were followers. Now, they did some egregious stuff, and they were all convicted of multiple felony crimes, but the jury made some common sense decisions about how far they wanted to reach with conspirator liability. This is the most compelling example Stuart Elmer Stewart Rhodes was convicted of all counts except one interfering with the duties of a police officer to use Lehman's terms, because he never went into Here's why that's so interesting for

vital nerds like me. He as a member of the conspiracy, indeed, as the head of the conspiracy. Conspiracy law says every member of the conspiracy can be convicted for every single crime committed by every other member of the conspiracy, even if that person didn't participate in it. Now, the law allows that, but the law doesn't require that. So these jurors were crazy, attentive and thoughtful in the way they parsed out the evidence and did what may feel right

in holding everybody responsible. But here and there saying no, we're not going to convict mindlessly on all charges. We're gonna thoughtfully assess the evidence. Now, the reason that's so important, as appellate lawyers will tell you, is that shows that this jury was not just unduly swayed or prejudiced by the nature of these egregious crimes. They still thoughtfully work through it. That actually strength strengthens the case on appeal,

and I predict Judgemita presided over the trial extraordinarily. Well, all of these convictions will be appealed and all of them will be affirmed on appeal. Now, what are some of the other takeaways? Yeah, this one I love. Next week we have part two of the oath Keeper's seditious conspiracy trial. Remember that military stack going into the capital that day with these little faux soldiers with their hands on each other's shoulders, marching into the Capitol in their

play military uniforms. When they got in there, seven of them split off one way to go to the House chambers. The other seven split off to go to the Senate chambers. They wanted to stop what was going on in both chambers. We only went we federal prosecutors only took on half of that stack. Next week, the second half of the stack goes on trial for seditious conspiracy. December thirteenth, the Proud Boys go on trial for seditious conspiracy. So what

do these guilty verdicts of seditious conspiracy do, Danielle. Every one of those defendants is meeting with his lawyer or her lawyer right now and saying, we got we gotta renegotiate a possible guilty, hopefully with cooperation, because the government just proved beyond a reasonable doubt we all were engaged in a seditious conspiracy. We're screwed. What does that do? It will undoubtedly prompt more guilty please, probably with cooperation.

And here's the best part of all of that. We know who some of the suits of the insurrection are that we're intimately involved with oath Keepers and Proud Boys. So the likelihood that we will now see indictments of Roger Stone, Alex Jones, and Mike Flynn have shot up as a result of this conviction. One last takeaway I just I wrote a piece for MSNBC Daily and I put the main takeaways in that piece. It went up

a day or two ago. One last one, Even though there are so many is the prosecutors were really smart about not injecting politics into this trial. Well, how can you not inject politics into an attempt to overthrow the government. They almost never even uttered the name Donald prosecutors because they didn't want to make this about politics. They wanted to make it about violence and an attempt to undermine

our democracy, regardless of political affiliation. But the defendants, including Elmer Rhodes dragged politics into the courtroom at every opportunity. Danielle I wish, I wish we could have broadcast Elmer's testimony. It was so deceitful, it was so off putting, it was so abrasive because he said to the jury the twenty twenty presidential election was unlawful and unconstitutional. And then he said to them, the disbarred Yale lawyer that he is,

he said, ladies and gentlemen, I'm a constitutional expert. Now who anointed him the arbiter of the constitutionality of presidential elections? I don't know, but he thought because he determined it was unconstitutional, he and the oath keepers could do anything. They damned well pleased the first stop to Joe Biden's certification.

They dragged politics into the courtroom, and the jury, by its verdicts, said to them, you were not acting as patriots, because all five of these defendants trying to say they were patriots, You weren't patriots, your traitors. We reject a big lie, reject your rigged election narrative, and all of you mo fos are guilty. That is a nice atmospheric benefit of this jury's decision to convict them for what

they did on January sixth. You know, one of the things that I have been wanting to ask you is in the trial they brought in the voicemail either was a voicemailer or was a text message of Rhodes saying that they should have brought more weapons in, right, that if they had known how things were going to go out, they should have brought more weapons in. They would have

strung up Nancy Pelosi. Um. And I mean it was really violent and really incredibly off putting, And I want to know how you saw the jury react to that, to that statement. That's number one and then two, you know, the other thing about the election being stolen and the

election being rigged. Was there anything in his testimony where he said we were acting on behalf of the President of the United States, waiting for him to essentially either call for martial law or or I forget what it was like to there there was another act, the insurrect or waiting for the president to you know, and enact the Insurrection Act. Was any of that said in his testimony and statement? Yeah, So to answer your first question, I think you saw the jurors were pretty sort of

reserved and circumspect and thoughtful. I think they really seemed to appreciate the weight and the gravity of what they were being asked to do. But particularly when the defendants testified. Three of the five defendants testified, which is really unusual in a big federal trial. They usually rely on the government's very high burden of proof and the presumption of innocence, and once they start opening their mouths, they get cross examined and they often fall apart, as did all three

of these defendants. But you could see when some of the more expressly violent evidence, the posts, the texts, the recorded statements came into evidence, you could kind of see them gently recoil even though they were trying not to. And the one you mentioned, I mean, think about this defendant, Elmer Stewart Rhodes said, the only thing I regret is not that there was all this violence at the Capitol,

not that the certification was actually stopped. It was delayed so they succeeded at least until they could reassemble and continue certifying Joe Biden's win. Not that people were killed. He said. The only thing I regret is we didn't bring our weapons in because we could have. I'm going to paraphrase, I don't remember his exact words. We could have killed a bunch of politicians and I would have strung up Nancy Pelosi from the lamp. Post human beings.

If you have any moral core, you can't help but recoil from that, and they did. And then your second question, with respect to was there anything that expressly tied Donald Trump into what happened on January sixth, you asked were they acting at the direction of or were they waiting for orders? From the answer to your first question is they really weren't acting at the direction of I would love to say they were, because that would more firmly

sort of entrench Donald Trump into this seditious conspiracy. But they, you know, el Elmer kept saying in recorded video statements, you know, mister President, invoke the Insurrection Act so we can come in with our guns ablazing. I'm taking liberties with his exact words. But if you don't, the oath keepers will take matters into their own hands. And what Danielle is Donald Trump didn't. So I think that the fair assessment of the evidence is Donald Trump didn't tell

them to do it. They weren't acting at the request of Donald Trump. Indeed, he didn't even do something they wanted him to do because they invoke the Insurrection Act because that would have unleashed them and their weapons. So but it really is I don't want it to sound deflating,

because the evidence is what it is. But but because the prosecutors were so careful not to bring Donald Trump into the courtroom figuratively the specter of Trump, because you don't know what the political ideologies or preferences are of the twelve people in the jury box. That doesn't mean they don't have a whole bunch more evidence. But the evidence that was presented in this trial does not lead to the conclusion that they were acting at the direction

of Donald Trump. Indeed, it suggests they wanted Donald Trump desperately to do something that he wouldn't do invoke the Insurrection Act. But there's so much other evidence that warrants an indictment of Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection and attempting to overthrow the government that you know this this trial may not have forwarded the bat ball, but it

doesn't really matter at the end of the day. You know there's something there are There are a couple of things that have that have come up over the last couple of weeks. One the reminder that there were members of Congress who were using the oath Keepers as their

own quote unquote private detail. Right, So was that brought up in the trial or how do you think that that information can and should be used moving forward as we look ahead, as you said at the top, to the second Stas trial as well as the Proud Boys, Because when I think about Alex Jones, Mike Flynn, and Roger Stone, I think about the way in which they were utilizing these two groups as their private militia and army, right, And so how does that evidence, how does that knowing

help these cases as they as they move forward. So I'll stop there because I have a follow up. Okay, So there really was no mention of members of Congress in this trial. Why because that information was unnecessary to convict the oath Keepers of the crimes with which they were charged. So again, the prosecutors were smart not to stray into political territory that was unnecessary for purposes of

winning guilty verdicts. Now, yeah, there's a lot to unpack on the members of Congress front, because I do believe some of them were complicit in the insurrection. The oath keepers kept saying, we were there just providing protection, security details. But that was such full because one when they got there, they didn't protect anybody, no security details. And more importantly, the thousands of text messages and signal chats and Facebook

posts where they were communicating nothing about security details. It was all we got to get our guns. We got to go put a stop to this. We gotta And then following on that, Elmer Rhodes said in one of his posts, all right, everybody, we have to keep saying Insurrection Act, Insurrection Act, Insurrection Act, because that will give us legal cover for what we're doing. So all of this we're there to provide security details to members of Congress or others was cover. It was bs right because

they knew what they were really there to do. So I don't know that there was no evidence that they were providing any sort of services for members of Congress that day. But here's the thing. We know that members of Congress were complicit in any number of ways in either the insurrection itself or in providing aid and comfort to those who participated in the insurrection. And what needs to happen now and I hope Special Counsel Jack Smith

is just the person to do. What we can talk more about that what needs to happen now is one, they need to see if there's enough evidence to criminally indict all of these members of Congress who are part of the insurrection. And two they need to be there needs to be a challenge to them continuing to sit

as members of Congress. And here's the good news. We know that the Fourteenth Amendment, Section three, flat out says if you were a part of the insurrection and you had previously taken an oath of loyalty to the United States, like you were a member of Congress, you are disqualified from serving in public office. But the fourteenth Amendment doesn't have any mechanism to implement that. It just says, as

a matter of fact, you are disqualified. Well, there is there's something brewing where when the new Congress is about to be sworn in, other members Congress can object to the insurrectionists who are about to take the oath. Stay tuned on that front, because that will take some brave members of Congress. And I believe there's some stuff brewing, and announcements will be made whenever announcements are made if

it sort of ripens to that point. But first and foremot that's a political population, right, But first and foremost, if the evidence supports it, and I believe the evidence probably does support criminally indicting some of these members of Little Josh Hallie go in directionists go I got your back, I'm with you, and then you see him running away when the insurrectionists to make their way into the capital. What a punk these people? Oh man, I just want

to go back to my Jersey roots. These people need to be held accountable. And if whatever your follow up is, let's do that, and then let's talk about how I think Jack Smith may may take us. I mean, you kind of answered part of it because it was going to be about, you know, these members of Congress and I can't remember. You will remember the member that was in the bulletproof vest that happened to be under his uh, Mobrooks. Mobrooks who was at the stop the Steel rally with

a bulletproof vest underneath his underneath his clothing. Why would you need that? Right? No one else was in was in bulletproof regalia. Right, So you must have had some previous knowledge as to what could possibly be unfolding. The other piece, Glenn, is that now that these people, these other folks who have yet to who have yet to sit for their trials, see that this charge was now,

see that this charge was upheld. Now do the hey is now the pressure to say, Okay, maybe we don't go after you for a seditious conspiracy, but you got to give up who gave you the maps, who gave you right the prior tour the day before, right to give you the lay of the land. Because I tell you, as somebody who worked on Capitol Hill, the way that

those people found those unmarked offices. I worked on Capitol Hill for years and couldn't find those would still have to ask, you know, Capitol police, Oh you know, am I going to this tunnel or this place or that? And they knew to go direct So where did they get that information from? Is that the root of the route that we were going to see the Feds going after? Absolutely?

And when I said these guilty verdicts will inspire oathkeeper boys to want to plead guilty and cooperate to reduce their exposure, you know, I said that will sort of directly I believe implicate guys like Flynn Stone and Alex Jones. But I also think you're exactly right. These people have information about members of Congress and what they did to enable and assist and you know, so I think these guilty verdicts up the anti on the members of Congress

as well. And you know, when you talk about the Capitol Police, let me give a shout out to now my friend Harry Dunn. You know, I worked with Mike venone decades ago. We were working murder cases together when he was in one d in the DC and I was the chief a homicide. So I have known Mike for a very long time. I've only come to know Harry recently. And I was in the courtroom for his testimony, and Danielle, first of all, yes, he is a human wall.

Harry is enormous, right, And Harry testified, and there was video that captured this. Harry is standing there. Yep, I get emotion. I get emotional. He's but one man. He's blocking the stairwell that leads to the Speaker's office and there are rioters and oathkeepers who and he said, y'all aren't getting by me. And he was one man who

held that line and four hit for it. They called him every name in the book that you know, and goodness, gracious, there are heroic public servants that walk among us, like Harry Dunne. And you know, as much as we beat up on police and we beat up on the Department of Justice, goodness, when heroes do what Harry Dunn did and Mike Fenone and Aquilino Gonell and the rest of those officers that day, my goodness, we need to thank them and we need to honor them, and we need

to remember that we have heroic public servants like Harry Dunn. Yeah, thank you for that, Glenn, because it is it is a very you know, needed reminder about who allowed for you know, true devastation not to come down on our capital, on our democracy that day, because they put their lives and their bodies on the line, and for that, I

think all of us should be grateful. With a few minutes that we have left, I do want to talk about Jack Smith now and what you believe the Department of Justice is doing right because I got to tell you, you know, I think I might have text you that day when the announcement was made and I was just like, what the f is going on, you know, because this feels like another another avenue and a flashback deja vu to the Mala Report, which was well all about nothing,

you know at the end of the day. So what do you think, because we hadn't had the opportunity to talk, what do you think about the Special Council, what do you think about Jack Smith? And how do you think that they're going to use, hopefully god willing, use these verdicts as a way to get to the architect head, the snakehead that is Donald Trump. Yeah, so I'm with you, Danielle that we are suffering from hero fatigue. We thought

Bob Muller was going to bring it home now. I think when you read volume two of the Trump, the Trump Russia Report, where he meticulously details as many as ten felony obstruction of justice crimes by a man that he was not permitted to indict because of that stupid assj policy saying you can't indict a sitting criminal president. That is some banana republics yet right there, and I hope somebody revisits that Mueller could only do what he could do, and of course he was blocked significantly by

Bill Barr and his lies about the Mueller Report. Then we had Merrick Garland coming in. Now, Merrick Garland was a prosecutor in my office thirty forty or more years ago. Then he was highly regarded. Handled cases like the Mayor Mary Ran Barry case, which was obviously politically charged, which was a difficult case on the evidence, he handled it well. He went on to handle obviously Oklahoma City bombing and other high profile cases that he supervised, he didn't try them.

And then for a quarter of a century he was a judge, very good judge by all accounts. You can agree or disagree with some of the ideological underpinnings of some of what he decided. But I think we learned over the last eighteen months that Merrick Garland lost his prosecutorial chops and was running the Department of Justice in the Age's office more like a judge's chambers than a really aggressive prosecutor's office at this most dangerous moment in

our nation's history. So I feel like we're being fooled up, maybe a third time. Jack Smith and Danielle like you. It's funny. In advance of the announcement, I actually talked on air or somewhere or maybe it was just in my head. I actually did say I don't think appointing a special counsel now is necessary or is a good thing, because look look at how when they appointed Bob Muller,

he had to start from scratch. He had to hire investigators, higher prosecutors, hire a support staff, stand up in office, begin investigating. That takes a long time. But then, but I did say back then, the only way I could see it working is if they put him in place to oversee all of the investigations that have been up and running for a year and a half now and say now accelerate them. So the first thing I did when I saw I was in the courthouse covering the

Oathkeepers trial. I saw the announcement. Actually a reporter got an advanced notice of it, and she pulled me over. She's like, Glenn, look at this. So the first thing I did is I reached out to my friends who had worked directly for Jackson when he was the head of the Public Integrity Section. And what I learned from people that I respect immensely is that Jack Smith is a real, without fear or favor kind of guy. He

abhors political corruption. He abhors obstruction of justice and witness tampering. And he is fearless, and he's willing to take politically charged cases that are not sure things. And he walked that walk. He prosecuted Virginia governor Republican Governor Bob McDonald, won convictions, and then years later on appeal, the Supreme Court didn't like the fact that the Department of Justice could so aggressively go after high politicians and they reverse

the convictions. That's not a failing of Jack Smith and his team, that's a failing of our Supreme Court, surprise, protecting high government high government officials. So and then he went after He went after a Democrat Senator Bob Edwards, John Edwards, excuse me, John Edwards, who was running for president right. He went after him for campaign finance violations. It was a hard case to make. In what happened, the jury hung. They actually acquitted on one count and

hung on the other five hard case. He didn't win it, but he wasn't afraid to bring it. What did he do? He brought a case against the Republican member of Congress, a representative a zer As Ease I forget his last name. Precisely charged that Republican member of Congress with bribery, extortion, and racketeering, convicted him. What did he do next? He brought a criminal execution against Bob Menendez, a Democrat senator from New Jersey. Not a strong case, but he said,

I don't care. I have enough evidence to get the question to the jury. Public corruption is the devil. I'm bringing it. The jury hung and they opted not to read retry the case. After the hung jury, Danielle, what has he done? Oh, we brought a case against the CIA officer for miss handling classified information and he won convictions in that case. What has he done? He's gone after Republicans, He's gone after Democrats. He's gone after people who abuse the public trust. He hasn't won every cases.

I swear, give me a prosecutor on my team who has lost some cases because they brought the tough cases against high government officials. That's my kind of teammate. Based on everything. And then he's putting pen to paper and filing stuff on Thanksgiving Day in the Eleventh Circuit saying Donald Trump's lawyers are wrong, Judge, don't be fooled. And he had the goods to back it up. I mean, and he went to the Hague to prosecute war criminals.

He is, he has gone after some of the worst of the worst in this world, and now he is going after one of the worst of the worst in America, a former criminal president. Let's get it on. Let's get it on. Okay. You know, I always appreciate your insight, Glenn, because of your obvious thirty years of prosecutorial experience and the fact that you still have friends and talk to

folks inside of the Department. And I will say that I'm in a wait and see, right, I'm gonna I'm you know, because I have had and you have had our hopes dashed way too many times since the beginning of the Trump presidency, after the Trump presidency, during the insurrection, after the insurrection, until now. So I will wait and see because I believe that we are in for come January, an entire fucking circus with the Republicans taking control of

the House. But you just gave me a sliver of hope that if there are in fact objections to those that are going to be sworn in, and in fact, like there should be Republicans that are quaking in their boots right now about what these other oath keepers and proud boys can say about their involvement in providing recon work to the insurrection, then that gives me something, and I hope it gives our listeners something to hang onto that we will see, you know, because I tell you

that the January sixth anniversary, it's gonna be what this second year anniversary, and none of the architects of the insurrection have been indicted, have been tried, have been put in prison, and so it is hard to hold on to hope that we will see it. But what you have given us today, as always, provides, you know, some ray of light in the clouds that we have been existing in for for the last couple of years. So you know, for Glenn, you know, as always, I appreciate you.

I'm so happy to have had this supersized unpacking of where we've been over the last several weeks and hopefully a window into where we're going in January, and we're back on track, all right, Glenn, appreciate you so much. That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke a f as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power get woke. And stay woke as fuck