Source: Politics<\/p>\n
A member of the Oath Keepers who traveled with the group to Washington D.C. ahead of the Jan. 6 riot described a massive stockpile of firearms and other weaponry that allies had stashed in an Arlington, Va. hotel.<\/p>\n
“I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,\u201d recalled Terry Cummings, a Florida resident who said he joined the Oath Keepers in 2020 amid concerns about left-wing violence in Portland, Ore. and joined the group leaders\u2019 private chats in advance of their Jan. 6 trip to D.C.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have described that arsenal \u2014 known as a \u201cquick reaction force\u201d or QRF \u2014 as a key element of the Oath Keeper leaders\u2019 plot to subvert the 2020 election and help forcibly keep then-President Donald Trump in power. The group\u2019s founder, Stewart Rhodes, and several regional leaders are charged with conspiring to disrupt the transfer of power and preparing for violence to enforce their will.<\/p>\n
Cummings displayed for jurors the AR-15 that he brought with him and contributed to the weapons stash, as well as a box of ammunition.<\/p>\n
Justice Department prosecutors spent much of the day \u2014 in the second week of what\u2019s likely to be a six-week trial against Rhodes and four co-defendants \u2014 revealing encrypted Signal messages between Rhodes and the group\u2019s regional leaders organizing and activating plans to travel to Washington on Jan. 6. Many of those messages described their goal as preventing President Joe Biden from taking office and pressing Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which Rhodes contended would license the group to forcibly prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe armed Americans have one good trick left up our sleeve. It\u2019s the same one Samuel Whitmore [sic] used long ago, right along with all the other farmers who fired the shots heard round the world,\u201d Rhodes wrote to Georgia Oath keepers on Dec. 14, 2020, describing the onset of the American Revolution.<\/p>\n
In a Dec. 20, 2020, message to the same Signal chat, Georgia Oath Keeper Brian Ulrich \u2014 who has since pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy \u2014 said only action by Trump would prevent mass violence and death.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump acts now maybe a few hundred radicals die trying to burn down cities,\u201d he wrote. \u201cTrump sits on his hands, Biden wins, millions die resisting the death of the 1st and 2nd amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhodes and his codefendants, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell, have contended that their trip was primarily about providing security to VIP attendees of Trump\u2019s speech at the White House Ellipse and that their weapons cache was meant to support the group\u2019s efforts if street violence broke out with counterprotesters on Jan. 6. They note that they never deployed those weapons into Washington, which has strict gun laws, even after a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol.<\/p>\n
Cummings, a military veteran who is not charged with any crimes related to Jan. 6, said he traveled to Washington with Harrelson and Jason Dolan, who pleaded guilty last year for his Jan. 6-related actions, with the intent of supporting the group\u2019s security details. He recalled meeting the VIP he was tasked with protecting but said he couldn\u2019t recall her name, only that she appeared to be a \u201cHispanic female.\u201d She remained by the northwest side of the Capitol even as members of the Oath Keepers continued to march toward the Capitol.<\/p>\n
Cummings said that at some point as the group marched toward the Capitol, Meggs informed him that the building had been \u201cbreached.\u201d He remembered Meggs asking someone whether the group should enter the Capitol.<\/p>\n
Cummings left the group after using a port-a-potty outside the Capitol and only reconnected with them after they regrouped outside the Capitol. He recalled Rhodes shrugging off the decision by police to begin using tear gas against rioters.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuck it up,\u201d he recalled Rhodes saying. \u201cIt\u2019s just CS gas.\u201d<\/p>\n