The Conspirators: The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers on Jan. 6 – Lawfare

A week before the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the Proud Boys, issued an unusual message to his crew. Originally launched in 2016, the Proud Boys are a violent, far-right group whose members describe themselves as Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.

In a Dec. 29, 2020, post on Parler, Tarrio called on gang members to turn out in record numbers on Jan. 6, but this time with a twist. He continued: We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will be spread across downtown DC in smaller teams.

That same day, the head of a Florida Proud Boys chapter, Joe Biggs, issued his own Parler post highlighting the importance of blending in on Jan. 6.

You wont see us, he wrote. We are going to smell like you, move like you, and look like you. The only thing well do thats us is think like us! Jan 6th is gonna be epic.

By then, another far-right, extremist group, the Oath Keepers, was also preparing for Jan. 6. Two days before the riot, the groups founder and leader, Stewart Rhodes, posted a statement on the Oath Keepers website. It read in part:

It is CRITICAL that all patriots who can be in DC get to DC to stand tall in support of President Trumps fight to defeat the enemies foreign and domestic who are attempting a coup, through the massive vote fraud and related attacks on our Republic. [W]e will also have well armed and equipped QRF [quick reaction force] teams on standby, outside DC, in the event of a worst case scenario, where the President calls us up as part of the militia to assist him inside DC.

From Jan. 5 through Jan. 7, the Oath Keepers did, in fact, stash an arsenal of firearms and ammunition at the Comfort Inn in Ballston, Va.about a 15-minute drive from the Capitolaccording to an indictment subsequently brought by federal prosecutors.

Of the more than 700 individuals who have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, only about 40 have been accused of conspiracymeaning that they are accused of planning and coordinating with others in advance to commit crimes on that date. Of the 40 conspiracy defendants, the vast majority are either Oath Keepers or Proud Boys.

These two groups appear to have played an outsized role in the events of that day, and their cases should hold particular interest for those trying to understand the causes of the insurrection. Some of these individualsmainly Proud Boysstand accused of having played crucial roles in initiating the violence that day and in getting the normies around them all riled up, as one Proud Boy later bragged of having done. Othersmainly Oath Keepersplayed semi-official roles at the rallies leading up to the riot, serving either as speakers themselves or providing security for speakers or VIPs.

Ill keep working on overall contact between Natl/congress team and stop the steal team for scheduling etc., Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs wrote, for instance, in an encrypted Oath Keeper chat channel on Signal on Jan. 4.

Twenty-one Oath Keepers (either dues-paying members or informal associates) have been charged in one indictment for, among other things, conspiring to corruptly obstruct an official proceedingnamely, the Joint Session of Congress devoted to counting the states previously certified Electoral College votes pursuant to the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Act. Four of these defendants have already pleaded guilty, pledging to cooperate. The remaining defendants, who have all pleaded not guilty, are set to go to trial on April 19.

The Proud Boys prosecutions are more numerous, splintered and harder to count definitivelyperhaps reflecting Tarrios instructions to remain incognito and to act in smaller teams. At least 15 Proud Boys (or their close associates) have been indicted for conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, though they have been charged in four different cases. (One of these defendants has pleaded guilty.) In addition, at least a dozen more Proud Boys or associates have been charged with serious felonies stemming from the attackincluding assaulting police officersalthough not with conspiring to commit those felonies.

The groups leadersOath Keeper founder Rhodes and Proud Boy chairman Tarriohave not been charged, though each is alluded to in an indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator. Although Rhodes was present in D.C. on Jan. 6, he remained on the lawful side of the perimeter of the Capitol grounds restricted areas that day. He allegedly did communicate with his colleagues from there by phone and text, however. (Rhodes has denied that he or any Oath Keepers sought to disrupt certification of the Electoral College results, and has told the New York Times that the Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol building did so only to render aid after hearing that someone had been shot there. But according to the governments timeline, at least 14 Oath Keepers had penetrated the building five minutes before rioter Ashli Babbitt was shot in a hallway outside the Speakers Lobby.)

Tarrio, who is from Miami, was not in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6. He arrived there Jan. 4, but was immediately arrested on charges stemming from violence after a Stop the Steal rally a month earlier. At the time of his arrest, he was found to be in felony possession of two high-capacity magazines compatible with AR-15 or M4 assault rifles. As a condition of pretrial release on Jan. 5, he was ordered to leave D.C. In July he pleaded guilty to having burned a Black Lives Matter banner vandalized from a historically Black church and to a misdemeanor charge relating to the magazines. Tarrio, who is believed to still be in custody on a five-month sentence imposed in late August, could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Lucas Dansie, declined to comment.

Although there is some evidence of coordination between at least some Oath Keepers and Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6, for the most part the groups acted in quite distinct ways that day.

The Oath Keepers, for their part, acted in an audaciously open, disciplined and military fashion as they allegedly attacked the heart and symbol of our democratic government. At about 2:39 p.m. that day, when about 14 of them allegedly helped force open the buildings Eastern doors near the Capitol Rotunda, they were decked out in full tactical gear, wearing hard-knuckled gloves, tactical vests or plate carriers, camo helmets, ballistic goggles, radios with earpieces, gaiters and boots. Certain individuals allegedly carried bear spray or a coil of paracord. The spectacle of at least 12 Oath Keepers maneuvering up the Capitol steps in stack formationeach holding the shoulder of the cadre in front of him or herbecame an indelible symbol of the insurrection. It was consistent with Rhodes repeated, months-long predictions of an imminent bloody, bloody civil-war.

The Oath Keepers case is also of special interest in that a number of these defendants were playing semi-official roles at the rallies that weekend as well as at earlier Stop the Steal rallies. At least one Oath KeeperJessica Watkinshad a VIP pass to provide security at the main rally at the Ellipse, while six others were providing security for longtime dirty trickster, convicted felon and Trump pardonee Roger Stone on Jan. 5 and 6.

Stone was not just a major promoter of the Stop the Steal movement and a key speaker at rallies on Jan. 5. He was also the original mastermind of the whole template for insurrection that played out on Jan. 6. Four years earlierin July 2016when Stone mistakenly assumed that Trump would lose his first Presidential contest against Hillary Clinton, he had laid out the entire insurrection formula in an interview on Breitbarts The Milo Yiannopoulos Show. He had observed then that a voting machine was essentially a computer and had reasoned, Who is to say they cannot be rigged? He continued:

I think we have widespread voter fraud, but the first thing that Trump needs to do is begin talking about it constantly. He needs to say for example: . . . I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that theres voter fraud. If theres voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.

. . . I think hes gotta put them on notice that their Inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it.

Turning to the Proud Boys, their role on Jan. 6 was far more furtive than the Oath Keepersbut also more violent and momentous. (Just one among the 21 accused Oath Keeper conspirators has been charged with assaulting a police officer, for instance, while many of the Proud Boys have been. The rest of the Oath Keepers are mainly charged with conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, impeding law enforcement officers during a civil disorder, damaging federal property and destroying evidence after the fact.)

By the time the Oath Keepers first helped the mob force its way into the east side of the Capitol at 2:39 p.m., the western side of the building had already been breached about a half hour earlier, at about 2:13 p.m. The Proud Boys had played a crucial role in accomplishing that feat, according to the government.

Moreover, as well see, there is evidence that the Proud Boys planned to storm the Capitol from before the day ever began. They were allegedly present when rioters pushed over the very first line of bike-rack barriers on the Capitols northwest side and overpowered the first set of Capitol Police officersleaving one with a concussion. Proud Boys then allegedly helped remove a second line of barriers closer to the building. They were allegedly at the forefront of those pushing up the steps beneath the Inaugural scaffolding to reach the Upper West Terrace. A Proud Boy broke out the very first window pane with a stolen riot shield at about 2:13 p.m. Over the next two minutes, at least six Proud Boys were among the first rioters to forcibly enter the Capitol building, either jumping through that broken window or walking through the door next to it, after a rioter forced it open from within.

In this article I provide an overview and timeline of whats known so far about the extraordinary roles the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys played on that historic day. It is based largely on the allegations of indictments, charging instruments and other government filings in the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper cases, but is supplemented with other publicly available source materials and media analysis. (I have also relied in some instances on allegations contained in civil suits filed against individual Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, especially those brought against certain members of those groups by Capitol Police officer Conrad Smith and seven other injured police officers and by the District of Columbia.)

At this stage, although none of the cases have gone to trial and much is yet to learn, we can make some tentative conclusions:

By May 2020, President Trump had begun laying the foundation for blaming his upcoming election loss on voter fraud. Apparently following Roger Stones template from 2016, he was alleging widespread voting fraud and talking about it constantly.

MAIL-IN VOTING VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE, he tweeted in May.

RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS, he tweeted in June. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!

In September, Stone himself began implementing his own earlier narrative. In an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Joness Infowars network, Stone said that ballots already cast in Nevada were completely corrupted, that we can prove voter fraud in the absentees right now and that the votes from Nevada should not be counted. Stone added that the only legitimate outcome to the 2020 election would be a Trump victory, and that Trump should consider declaring martial law or invoking the Insurrection Act.

In late October 2020, Oath Keepers founder Rhodes was also interviewed by Jones on Infowars, where he was a frequent guest. Whether by design or predisposition, Rhodes was fully onboard with the false election fraud narrative. He said that he would not recognize a Biden victory as legitimate, and that he didnt trust the electoral system any longer. He spoke of a coming civil war, expressed concern about someone staging a Benghazi-style attack on the White House on election night and urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act before then.

Rhodes and his Oath Keepers have always evinced a strong paranoid streak. A former Army paratrooper and 2004 Yale Law School graduate, Rhodes founded the group in 2009 after President Obama took office. The group recruits heavily among formerand even currentmilitary servicemen, police officers, firefighters and EMT personnel. Rhodes often wears an eye patch. That stems from a 1993 accident in which he dropped a loaded handgun, shooting himself in the face, according to the Atlantics Mike Giglio.

Rhodes built his organization on the premise that the U.S. government had been subverted by globalists and socialists. These enemies were not only going to try to seize Americans gunsthough that was certainly the primary fearbut also to throw them into concentration camps. Oath Keepers, therefore, take oaths to refuse to obey a list of improbable government orders including, for instance, any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps or any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps.

On Nov. 7, 2020, the networks projected that then-former Vice President Joe Biden had won the election. The event had immediate implications for both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

That same day, Proud Boy chairman Tarrio posted on Parler: Standby order has been rescinded.

Tarrio was referring to the galvanizing, legitimizing event that Trump had conferred upon the Proud Boys in late September, during a Presidential debate. Asked by Chris Wallace if he would disavow white supremacists and right-wing militia like, for instance, the Proud Boys, Trump had responded:

The Proud Boys, stand back, and stand by. But I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.

After the debate, Proud Boys chairman Tarrio had posted on Parler, Standing by, sir. The head of the groups Florida chapter, Joe Biggs, had posted: Trump basically said to go fuck them up. This makes me so happy. (Biggs is a retired Army staff-sergeant who served in Afghanistan. Since his medical discharge in 2012, according to his lawyer, he has suffered from combat-related PTSD, depression, and some related alcohol problems. Before joining the Proud Boys, Biggs had been a correspondent for Alex Joness Infowars, and the two men remain close, according to the New York Timess Alan Feuer.)

Two days after Bidens apparent victory, Rhodes held a virtual conference over the GoToMeeting app with at least six other high-ranking Oath Keepers, including Jessica Watkins of Ohio and Kelly Meggs and Kenneth Harrelson of Florida. (It appears to have been taped, and the government quotes from it verbatim in its Oath Keeper indictment.)

Were going to defend the president, the duly elected president, Rhodes saidreferring to Trump"and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save the country. Because if you dont, guys, youre going to be in a bloody, bloody civil war and a bloodyyou can call it an insurrection or you can call it a war or a fight.

Rhodes then called on the Oath Keepers to show up in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14 for what became known as the Million MAGA March. He continued:

If the fight comes, let the fight come. Let Antifaif they go kinetic on us, then well go kinetic back on them. . . . If they throw bombs at us and shoot us, great, because that brings the president his reason and rationale for dropping the Insurrection Act. . . . We hope he will give us the orders. We want him to declare an insurrection, and to call us up as the militia.

Afterward, Oath Keeper Watkins began recruiting people to join the tiny local militia she had founded, called the Ohio State Regular Militia, apparently in anticipation of bringing them to D.C., too. Watkins, then 38, ran a bar called The Jolly Roger in Woodstock, Ohio. She lived in an apartment above the bar with her companion, who was also a dues-paying Oath Keeper. Watkins is an Army vet who had served in Afghanistan. (According to later representations by her attorney, she is a transgender female who was forced out of the military after her sexual orientation was discovered. After the riot, when the FBI searched Watkinss home in January 2021, agents found two bomb-making recipes in her apartment, including one for Making Plastic Explosives from Bleach and another for a pyrotechnic called thermite.)

Basic training is mandatory, Watkins texted one would-be recruit in November 2020, according to a later government filing. I need you fighting fit by innaugeration [sic]. The training would include 2 days of wargames, she explained, incorporated into larger combat training for urban warfare, riot control, and rescue operations.

Other Oath Keepers, the government alleges, had already begun combat training even before the election. Florida Oath Keepers (and now Jan. 6 defendants) Kelly Meggs, Connie Meggs (Kellys wife) and Kenneth Harrelson had taken a private combat training course in Leesburg, Fla., in September, which included training on AR-platform firearms.

In November, Oath Keeper Meggs, 52, of Dunnellon, Fla., was also recruiting. He urged others on Facebook to join him in doing shit rather than just talking on Facebook, prosecutors allege.

On Nov.10, 2020, Rhodes posted a Call to Action! on the Oath Keeper web site, which was further entitled: March on DC, Stop the Steal, Defend the President, & Defeat the Deep State. It said in part:

This election was stolen and this is a communist/Deep State coup, every bit as corrupt and illegitimate as what is done in third world banana republics. We must refuse to EVER recognize this as a legitimate election, and refuse to recognize Biden as a legitimate winner, and refuse to ever recognize him as the President of the United States. This election was stolen by corrupt, law-breaking Democrat partisans on the ground, and by the manipulation of the CIA created HAMMR (Hammer) and Scorecard programs.

HAMMR (or HAMR or Hammer) is a fictitious CIA supercomputera hoax, according to then Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency director Chris Krebsand Scorecard is the fantastical program that some conspiracy theorists imagine it runs. (Pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell also touted Hammer as a source of voting fraud shortly after the electionon Fox News Lou Dobbs Tonight on Nov. 6, for instancebefore she pivoted toward propagating false accusations about various voting device manufacturers, including Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic.)

Later that same day, Rhodes appeared on Alex Joness show again, where he mixed apocalyptic predictions about bloodshed to come with QAnon-like tirades about the need to expose deep-state pedophiles, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr.: Its either President Trump is encouraged, and bolstered, [and] strengthened to do what he must do, Rhodes said, or we wind up in a bloody fight. We all know that. The fights coming.

Several Oath Keepers attended the Million MAGA March, including Watkins and Donovan Crowl, 50, who was also a member of Watkinss militia in Ohio. Crowl is a former Marine whose later life, according to a post-riot New Yorker profile, had been marred by drinking, addiction, domestic violence and extreme overt racism. While they were in the D.C. area, Watkins and Crowl stayed at the farm of a retired Navy colonel, Tom Caldwell, of Berryville, Va., who was sympatico to the Oath Keepers objectives and worldview.

A few days after the Million MAGA March, Caldwell wrote to Crowl musing about next steps. I think there will be real violence for all of us next time, Caldwell wrote. I know its [sic] not my place but Im sure you have seen enough to know I am already working on the next D.C. op. We either WILL have a country and well be battling antifa-like bugs to keep it or we will have lost our country/freedom and we will be fighting to regain it.

Caldwell also texted Watkins a note a few days later, according to government filings:

I believe we will have to get violent to stop this, especially the antifa maggots who are sure to come out en masse even if we get the Prez for 4 more years. Stay sharp and we will meet again. You are my kinda person and we may have to fight next time. I have my own gear, I like to be ON TIME and go where the enemy is, especially after dark.

Since his post-riot arrest, Caldwells attorney has suggested in court filings that his client has a fertile imagination and likes to bluster, having once tried his hand at writing military-themed screenplays. Caldwell is 65, his attorney has noted, and is on full disability due to spinal injuries suffered while in the service. Its unlikely Caldwell could have ever effectuated many of the boasts found in his vivid emails and texts, his attorney has argued.

Still, prosecutors argue that Caldwell is dangerous. In November 2020, they stress, Caldwell ordered a double barreled, .380-calibre concealed handgun designed to look like a cellphone. In December he also emailed his Oath Keeper contacts links for weapons available on eBay, including a Zombie Killer Surgical Steel Tomahawk Axe. (The smartphone-gun did not arrive before Jan. 6, though Caldwell had written to the dealer in late December to remind him: I am eager to receive this weapon. Caldwell cancelled the still undelivered order in February, after his arrest.)

In any case, other Oath Keepers rhetoric was as apocalyptic as Caldwellsat least when it came to the prospect of a Biden Presidency. On Nov. 17, 2020 Watkins wrote to a recruit:

I don't underestimate the result of the deep state. Biden may still yet be our President. If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over. Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights. . . . If Biden get [sic] the steal, none of us have a chance in my mind. We already have our neck in the noose. They just havent kicked in the chair yet.

The Proud Boys rhetoric during this period was every bit as dire. In response to a social media post calling for unity, Proud Boy Biggs responded on Nov. 24: No bitch. This is war.

Proud Boy Ethan Nordeanan alleged member of the Proud Boys governing elders chapter and a sergeant-at-arms of its Seattle chapterissued the following post later that month, according to his indictment:

[W]e tried playing nice and by the rules, now you will deal with the monster you created. The spirit of 1776 has resurfaced and has created groups like the Proudboys and we will not be extinguished. We will grow like the flame that fuels us and spread like love that guides us. We are unstoppable, unrelenting and now unforgiving. Good luck to all you traitors of this county we so deeply love youre going to need it.

Earlier that month, Nordean had solicited militia groups in the Pacific Northwest to contact him on an encrypted social media application, according to Washington, D.C.s civil suit.

Proud Boy Zachary Rehl, the president of its Philadelphia chapter, was issuing similarly ominous warnings and threats, according to prosecutors: Hopefully the firing squads are for the traitors that are trying to steal the election from the American people, he wrote on Nov. 27, 2020. [S]ome people at the highest levels need to be made an example of with an execution or two or three.

More Stop the Steal rallies were held in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 12, two days before Presidential electors were to meet in state capitals to formalize the results of the 2020 election in their states. Speakers included Roger Stone, Proud Boy chairman Tarrio, Proud Boy elder Nordean, Oath Keeper founder Rhodes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Rhodess message was, again, paranoid and unhinged. He urged Trump to release Julian Assange and put him in charge of a data dump in order to:

show the world who the traitors are, and then use the Insurrection Act to drop the hammer on them. And all us veterans who swore that oath, until youre age 65, you can be called up as the militia, to support and defend the Constitution. He needs to know from you that you are with him, that if he does not do it now, while he is commander in chief, were going to have to do it ourselves later, in a much more desperate, much more bloody war. Lets get it on now while he is still the commander in chief. At the rally, Rhodess Oath Keepers provided security for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps pardoned, former national security advisor. By then, Flynn was also calling for imposition of an at least limited form of martial law, with the military seizing voting devices and running a do-over election.

On Dec. 14, when each state certified its own electoral college votes, Rhodes published a screed entitled, Open Letter to President Trump: You Must Use the Insurrection Act to Stop the Steal and Defeat the Coup:

You must act NOW as a wartime President, pursuant to your oath to defend the Constitution. . . . We are already in a fight. Its 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. Please dont do it. Do NOT concede, and do NOT wait until January 20, 2021. Strike now. . . . If you fail to act while you are still in office, we the people will have to fight a bloody civil war and revolution against these two illegitimate Communist Chinese puppets, and their illegitimate regime.

On Dec. 19, Trump issued perhaps the most momentous dog whistle of his career: Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election, he tweeted. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!

Within minutes, the tweet had been pinned on the home page of TheDonald.win, a site where extremist Trump supporters congregated. One user commented there, If youve been waiting for a signal, THATS IT, according to the civil suit later filed for Capitol Police Office Conrad Smith. He cant exactly openly tell you to revolt, observed another. This is the closest hell ever get.

Later that same day, Alex Jones told his viewers that Trumps will-be-wild tweet was one of the most historic events in American history, likening it to Paul Reveres ride in 1776. In language later quoted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol in its November 2021 cover letter to Jones subpoenaing his testimony and pertinent documents, he continued:

He is now calling on We the People to take action and show our numbers. . . . The time for games is over. The time for action is now. Ive been on the air for 27 years and Ive never reported on anything that comes as close to being this huge. This is seismic.

(Jones has vowed to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before the Committee, and has sued to block the panel from obtaining his phone records from AT&T.)

Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs was among the scores of Jan. 6 rioters now facing criminal charges who appear to have taken Trumps will-be-wild tweet as an invitation to violence. On Facebook he wrote: Trump said Its gonna be wild!!!!!!! Its gonna be wild!!!!!!! He wants us to make it WILD thats what hes saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild !!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentleman we are heading to DC pack your shit !!

For months, the Oath Keepers had been coordinating with one another by holding virtual chat sessions over the GoToMeeting app. After the election, however, many of them stopped using their real names on those channels, and started using pseudonyms. Meggs, for instance, switched to Gator1; Ken Harrelson, to Gator6; Joseph Hackett, of Sarasota, Fla., became Ahab.

By late December, the GoToMeeting channels had taken on names like se leaders dc 1/6/21 op call and florida dc op planning chat.

Toward the end of December, the Oath Keepers set up invitation-only chat groups on the encrypted Signal app to supplement their communications. One Signal channel, used by at least 10 leadership-level Oath Keepersincluding Rhodes, Watkins and Meggswas called DC OP: Jan 6, 21. A second, Florida-centric Signal chat group, consisting of at least nine Oath Keepersincluding Meggs, Harrelson and Hackettwas called OK FL DC OP Jan 6.

Oath Keeper Hackett became particularly meticulous about secrecy during this period, according to prosecutors. When he used the Oath Keeper GoToMeeting channels, hed sign inunder his Ahab pseudonymthrough a virtual private network (VPN). Instead of placing calls or texts through his ordinary carrier, AT&T/TracFone, he used an app on his iPhone called TextMe. He then associated his Signal account with his TextMe phone number, rather than his AT&T number. His TextMe account was, in turn, registered to his encrypted Protonmail email address, which was listed under a false name, John Willow. Hackett also advised fellow Oath Keepers that when they sent plans on Signal, they should write them out longhand on a scrap of paper and then send a photo of the piece of paper. Messages in cursive to eliminate digital reads, he explained.

After Trumps will-be-wild tweet, the Oath Keepers began preparing for Jan. 6. On Christmas Day, Meggs wrote on Facebook: Dc is no guns. So mace and gas masks, some batons. If you have armor thats good.

Eventually, it was decided that firearms would be stored with a quick reaction force (QRF) just outside D.C. at the Comfort Inn in Ballston. An aging Oath Keeper named Paulreferred to as Person Three in the indictmentwas eventually chosen to watch over the arsenal there, apparently because he was too broken down to be on the ground all day, as Caldwell later put it in a text to Watkins.

At one point, as Jan. 6 approached, Caldwell and Meggs both toyed with the idea of floating the QRF arms across the Potomac to D.C. by boat, if the need arose.

Cant believe I just thought of this, Caldwell wrote to an associate affiliated with the Three Percenters on Jan. 3. (The Three Percenters are a far-right militia group premised on the false belief that only three percent of American colonists actually fought against the British during the Revolutionary War.) If we had someone standing by at a dock ramp (one near the Pentagon for sure) we could have our Quick Response Team with the heavy weapons standing by, quickly load them and ferry them across the river to our waiting arms.

Meggs had discussed a similar notion on the Oath Keepers leadership Signal chat channel on Jan. 2:1 if by land North side of Lincoln Memorial 2 if by sea Corner of west basin and Ohio [Ave.] is a water transport landing!! QRF rally points Water of [sic] the bridges get closed.

In late December, in one of the Signal chat rooms, Meggs and Rhodes also discussed the need to intimidate Congress:

Meggs: We need to make those senators very uncomfortable with all of us being a few hundred feet away. Our peaceful protests need to have a little more teeth. They arent listening. Now we arent talking about crossing the line. But we need to be standing on the line!!! Its all bad from here guys. We need Trump because it will make our jobs easier. There is gonna be blood in the streets no matter what.

Rhodes: I think Congress will screw [Trump] over. The only change [sic] we/he has is if we scare the shit out of them and convince them it will be torches and pitchforks time is [sic] they dont do the right thing. But I dont think they will listen.

As Jan. 6 approached, Alex Jones hinted that historic bombshells were afoot. On Dec. 29 he told his viewers: Now I know some incredible information that I am not at liberty to tell you. But I am at liberty to give you a hint, which I don't think is too hard. You notice Trump said, January 6th will be wild in D.C.? Well, it will be wild.

Wild rumors were circulating in right-wing circles. Many Oath Keepers were anticipating Trumps imminent invocation of the Insurrection Act:

Meggs: Trumps [sic] staying in, hes gonna use the emergency broadcast system on cell phones to broadcast to the American people. Then he will claim the insurrection act.

[Unidentified interlocutor:] Thats awesome. Any idea when?

Meggs: Next week Then wait for the 6th when we are all in DC to insurrection.

Oath Keeper Watkins texted her fellow Ohio militia member Crowl on Dec. 26: Trump wants all able bodied Patriots to come. . . . if Trump activates Insurrection Act, Id hate to miss it.

It begins for real Jan 5 and 6, wrote Caldwell on Facebook on Dec. 31, on [sic] Washington D.C. when we mobilize in thestreets [sic]. Let them try to certify some crud on capitol hill with a million or more patriots in the streets. This kettle is set to boil.In late December 2020, Kelly Meggs made several references to having struck some sort of alliance with the Proud Boys. Well, we are ready for the rioters, Meggs wrote on Facebook on Dec. 19. [T]his week I organized an alliance between Oath Keepers, Florida 3%ers, and Proud Boys. We have decided to work together to shut this shit down. He later described the Proud Boys as a force multiplier, because they always have a big group.

Still, its very unclear exactly what sort of allianceif anywas truly struck. Meggss references were vague, and seemed more targeted toward beating up Antifa in West Side Story-style rumbles than toward coordinating an attack on the Capitol. On Christmas Day, for instance, Meggs wrote on Facebook (according to a later government filing):

At night we have orchestrated a plan with the proud boys. Ive been communicating with [redacted] the leader. We are gonna March with them for a while then fall back to the back of the crowd and turn off. Then we will have the proud boys get in front of them the cops will get between Antifa and proud boys. We will come in behind antifa and beat the hell out of them.

On Dec. 29, Proud Boy chairman Tarrio issued the previously referenced order for his colleagues to remain atypically incognito on Jan. 6. That same day, the Proud Boys initiated a new leadership structure called the Ministry of Self Defense, prosecutors allege, consisting of Tarrio, Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and at least one other. To communicate, they set up an encrypted messaging channel on Telegram, called MOSD.

Chairman Tarrios Jan. 4 arrest appears to have momentarily thrown the Proud Boys plans into disarray. Apparently fearful that Tarrios phone would be searched, Proud Boy Nordean, of the Seattle chapter, took steps to nuke the MOSD communications channel and replace it with a New MOSD, according to the government. The New MOSD participants included Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Charles Donohoe, the head of a Proud Boys chapter in North Carolina.

By that evening, however, the Proud Boys were regaining their footing. An unindicted Proud Boy co-conspirator wrote on the New MOSD channel: We had originally planned on breaking the guys into teams. Lets start divvying them up and getting baofeng channels picked out. (Baofeng is a brand of walkie-talkie type radios.)

The next day, Jan. 5, the Proud Boys created another encrypted messaging channel on Telegramwith over 60 userscalled Boots on the Ground, according to the government. In the early afternoon, Biggs used it to urge Proud Boys to stay out of trouble that day. We are trying to avoid getting into any shit tonight, he posted. Tomorrows the day. . . Just trying to get our numbers. So we can plan accordingly for tonight and tomorrows plan. Later, he reiterated, We have a plan.

On the afternoon and evening of Jan. 5, six Oath Keepers protected Roger Stone as he spoke at two rallies, according to the New York Times. They chauffeured him to and from events in a pair of golf carts.

This is nothing less than an epic struggle for the future of this country between Dark and Light, between the godly and the godless, between Good and Evil, Stone said at a rally near the White House that day, according to accounts in both the Times and Vice. And we will win this fightor America will step off into a thousand years of darkness. We dare not fail! . . . I will be with you tomorrowshoulder to shoulder!

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The Conspirators: The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers on Jan. 6 - Lawfare