Oath Keepers leader and 10 others indicted on Seditious Conspiracy over US Capitol breach

The generation that glorified questioning authority, marching, protesting, rioting and angry-mob violence is now on the opposite side – an embattled “establishment” which dislikes having its authority questioned.

On Jan. 13 the Justice Department charged 11 people who were at the Jan. 6, 2021 protest at the U.S. Capitol with “seditious conspiracy,” the most serious charges stemming from the incident brought so far.

The only person killed outright at the event was an unarmed female protester, shot by a police officer.

Among those charged is Elmer Stewart Rhodes of Granbury, Texas, founder of the Oath Keepers, a group of former military and law-enforcement personnel who once had to swear oaths to the U.S. Constitution and have promised to keep upholding them.

Prosecutors allege Rhodes and others conspired to storm the Capitol and interrupt the tallying of electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, tainted by strong indications of corruption in Democrat-stronghold cities, election laws widely and hastily changed under the cover of COVID prevention, and a monolithic big-media narrative that could not be questioned.

The protest also followed four years of Democrat questioning, groundless accusations, investigations and impeachment attempts after the surprise election of Donald Trump in 2016.

A total of 19 people were charged in the three separate indictments. Eleven face seditious conspiracy charges; the rest face counts of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding and other related charges. Rhodes and another man, Edward Vallejo of Phoenix, Ariz., were charged for the first time, but the others have been named in previous indictments.

“The seditious conspiracy indictment alleges that, following the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election, Rhodes conspired with his co-defendants and others to oppose by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of presidential power by Jan. 20, 2021,” said the Justice Department.

Jon Moseley, One of Rhodes’ attorneys, told CBS News “I don’t think they’ll be able to prove” the case against Rhodes based off the documents.

Prosecutors charge that Rhodes and his co-conspirators allegedly planned to stop the transfer of power by Jan. 20, 2020, when Joe Biden would be sworn into office.

“They coordinated travel across the country to enter Washington, D.C., equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and tactical gear, and were prepared to answer Rhodes’s call to take up arms at Rhodes’s direction,” according to the indictment. “Some co-conspirators also amassed firearms on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., distributed them among ‘quick reaction force’ teams, and planned to use the firearms in support of their plot to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.”

The only fatal shot fired on Jan. 6 came from a Capitol Police officer and killed an unarmed Trump supporter.