Stewart Rhodes never entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, after he conspired with members of his far-right anti-government Oath Keepers militia group to break into halls of Congress in what prosecutors described as an act of terrorism.
But two days after Donald Trump released him from prison, Rhodes freely walked through congressional office buildings in the Capitol complex.
Rhodes — whose 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy was commuted by the president as one of his first official actions in the Oval Office — met with at least one member of Congress on Wednesday.
The Oath Keepers founder met with Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida to lobby for a pardon for fellow Oath Keeper and January 6 rioter Jeremy Brown, who was sentenced to seven years in prison on weapons charges.
Rhodes, wearing a navy Trump 2020 hat, was joined on the Hill by far-right activist Ivan Raiklin, who filmed a series of interactions with reporters as they toured the Capitol, amplified bogus claims about the 2020 election, downplayed the mob’s attacks, and proclaimed his innocence.
“What did I do on January 6 that caused the harm?” Rhodes said at one point. “I didn’t direct my guys to go inside. They did that all on their own. Where is my culpability?”
He also said he regrets saying he wanted to “f******* hang” then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I regret that. I was drunk and pissed off,” he said.
Rhodes believes Trump “should’ve pardoned everybody … so that they can be restored back to their natural condition, which is innocent until proven guilty, in a fair trial,” he said.
More than 1,500 people were criminally charged in connection with a mob’s assault on the Capitol, fuelled by Trump’s bogus narrative that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen from him.
Trump issued “full pardons” for virtually all of them on January 20.
He commuted the sentences of 14 convicted members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, including Rhodes, to time served. Pending cases are in the process of being dismissed.
The Bureau of Prisons had released 211 people who remained in jail for January 6-related crimes by Tuesday morning.
Rhodes and his allies spent weeks discussing a violent response to the 2020 election on encrypted messaging apps, then organized a weapons and supply cache inside a hotel in Washington, D.C., before joining the mob that broke through the Capitol’s doors and windows, according to prosecutors.
After several members breached the Capitol that day, shouting out “this is our f****** house” and “we took the f****** Capitol” as they joined the mob, Rhodes hailed them as “patriots.” He told an ally that his only regret that day was that the group wasn’t armed.
Days after January 6, Rhodes typed a message intended for then-President Trump, calling on him to “save the republic” or “die in prison.”
That message was ultimately never delivered, but it echoed another message published on the Oath Keepers website weeks earlier, calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and deputize Rhodes and the Oath Keepers to take up arms against the government.
“It’s better to wage it with you as Commander-in-Chief than to have you comply with a fraudulent election, leave office, and leave the White House in the hands of illegitimate usurpers and Chinese puppets,” he wrote at the time.
He followed up with another message demanding that Trump “attack,” “drop the hammer” and deliver a “crushing blow” to his enemies “while they sleep, wrapped in their arrogance.”
Rhodes also instructed his allies to “get gear squared away and ready to fight”, adding that “Trump has one last chance right now to stand but he will need us and our rifles too.”
Democratic congressman Pete Aguilar, a member of the House Select Committee that investigated the events surrounding the attack, told reporters on Wednesday that “violent offenders are roaming the streets because Donald Trump took these actions.”
Asked how he felt about Rhodes’s presence at the Capitol, he said: “I think it’s new and interesting that they’re using the front door this time.”
