Oath Keepers founder tried to phone Trump on Jan. 6, group member tells court

The Oath Keepers founder facing seditious conspiracy charges tried to speak directly with President Donald Trump on the night of Jan. 6, 2021, and implored an intermediary to tell the president to use militia groups to stop the transfer of power, a fellow Oath Keepers member said in court Wednesday.

William Todd Wilson, a member of the far-right militia group who pleaded guilty Wednesday to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, said in federal court that he joined Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in a suite at the Phoenix Park Hotel not far from the Capitol shortly after the attack and listened as Rhodes called an unnamed Trump intermediary on speakerphone.

As he listened, he heard Rhodes “repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose a transfer of power,” Wilson and prosecutors said. The person on the line “denied Rhodes’ request to speak directly with President Trump,” according to the agreed-upon statement of offense in Wilson’s case.

Such a phone call, which Wilson said was made just after 5 p.m., would have taken place when rioters were still being cleared on the grounds of the Capitol, after Trump tweeted a video calling the rioters “very special” but before he tweeted, at 6:01 p.m., “Remember this day forever!”