Oath Keepers convictions 'a direct rejection of the big lie' and another courtroom loss for Trump: legal expert
Another court struck down former President Donald Trump's election lies with the conviction of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes on seditious conspiracy charges, according to a legal expert.
Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, another member of the right-wing militia, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their roles in planning the Jan. 6 insurrection, although three other members of the group were acquitted on that charge but convicted on other counts, and legal analyst Glenn Kirschner told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" what those convictions mean.
"Criminal trials are not supposed to be political endeavors," said Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and U.S. Army prosecutor. "The question for the jury exclusively, whether the evidence introduced at trial proved charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors did a pretty good job keeping politics out of the trial. Rarely did you hear a prosecutor even utter the name Donald Trump, but then the head of the Oath Keepers and lead defendant Elmer Stewart Rhodes took the stand and blew it all up."
"Now, it's rare for defendants to take the stand in large federal prosecutions," Kirschner added. "I've had some of my defendants take the stand, which, you know, was always a happy time for me because I got to cross-examine them, but when Rhodes took the stand very early on in his lengthy testimony he said, and I quote, 'The election was unconstitutional,' you know, said the disbarred Yale lawyer, and also helpfully added that he is a constitutional expert. I don't think he won points with the jury."
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Rhodes introduced politics, and Trump himself, into the trial when he made that claim on the witness stand, and he said the former president lost in court yet again.
"Once he did that, he really put the big lie on trial," Kirschner said. "So ultimately, I view the jury's verdict not only as an affirmation that the evidence proved the guilt of these five defendants beyond a reasonable doubt, but it was a pretty direct rejection of the 'big lie' itself. You know, in short, I think the verdicts were a victory of law, the rule of law, over lawlessness, and a victory of facts over, I guess, alternative facts."
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