Month: May 2023

A federal judge sentenced Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in prison Thursday for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The 57-year-old Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, received the longest sentence of any defendant to date. Before pronouncing the sentence in Washington, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said: “you, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.”

Prosecutors said Rhodes was in contact with Trump between his election loss and Jan. 6, calling on him to invoke the Insurrection Act with the intent of creating an armed militia to act on his behalf. Judge Mehta accepted the government’s recommendation to apply an enhancement for terrorism in Rhodes’ sentencing for the first time in a Jan. 6 case, . Mehta agreed with prosecutors that Rhodes “inspired the use of violence” in his followers to disrupt the certification and that his conduct met the legal definition of terrorism intended to influence the actions of government; and cited the stockpile of weapons the Oath Keepers had amassed just outside of Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, as well as Rhodes’ orders for members to delete incriminating messages after the Capitol assault.

Rhodes called himself a “political prisoner” before his sentencing. He addressed Judge Mehta in defiant remarks maintaining his innocence, saying: “like President Trump, my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country.”  In November he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, along with co-conspirator Kelly Meggs. A jury found he and other members of the group played a principal role in disrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

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On Thursday, the White House released a comprehensive plan to counter antisemitism across the U.S. In a video clip at an event announcing the plan, President Joe Biden said the strategy is “most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history, adding “we must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America.” 

The plan includes addressing the lack of education about the Holocaust, security at Jewish institutions, and the proliferation of conspiracy theories on the Internet. The strategy features four pillars: increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism; improving safety for Jewish communities; reversing the normalization of antisemitism and building solidarity among religious groups.

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris and the first Jewish spouse of a vice president, said at the event that antisemitism has divided American society: “It threatens our democracy while undermining our American values of freedom, community and decency. And antisemitism delivers simplistic, false and dangerous narratives that have led to extremists perpetrating deadly violence against Jews.”

Outgoing White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said that to increase awareness about antisemitism, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. will launch the first U.S.-based Holocaust education research center.  In addition, the National Endowment for the Humanities will expand its investment in K-12 education on Jewish history, adding that federal agencies have “committed to incorporating information about antisemitic bias and discrimination into their diversity, equity inclusion and accessibility training programs.”

The White House said that the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center will conduct an annual threat assessment “on antisemitic drivers of transnational violent extremism that can be shared with technology companies and other nongovernmental partners.”  The center released a declassified version of its first assessment on Thursday.

Editorial credit: Ringo Chiu / Shutterstock.com