- A judge said a delay of the Oath Keepers trial would "wreak havoc" on his docket.
- Oath Keepers argued that the recent publicity around House January 6 hearings justified a delay.
- Judge Amit Mehta said he couldn't let House hearings dictate the court's schedule.
A federal judge on Tuesday refused to push back the September trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes on charges related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, rejecting arguments that the high-profile proceeding should be delayed due to the publicity around the House committee investigating the insurrection.
During a court hearing, Judge Amit Mehta said he sympathized with arguments for pushing back the trial, which is set to begin the same month the House January 6 committee is expected to release a final report and hold another public hearing. But Mehta, an Obama appointee, said he could not allow the House panel's plans to set back the Oath Keepers' criminal trial at a time when prosecutions connected to the January 6 attack on the Capitol are flooding the federal courthouse in Washington, DC.
"I don't know what they're going to do and when they're going to do it," Mehta said, referring to the House January 6 committee. "This is a court of law. We cannot wait on the legislative process to move forward."
"I just cant do it. I cannot do it," the judge added. "If I move this case into January, it is going to wreak havoc on my docket."
Rhodes and four other members of the far-right group are set to stand trial beginning September 26 on seditious conspiracy charges connected to the Capitol siege, in a marque case for the Justice Department as it prosecutes hundreds of rioters who joined in the pro-Trump mob. Federal prosecutors have alleged that Rhodes and other Oath Keepers orchestrated a plan to storm the Capitol, in a scheme that included stockpiling weapons at a hotel just outside of Washington, DC.
In a bid to delay their trial, Rhodes and his codefendants pointed not only to the House January 6 committee's recent string of eight public hearings but also the panel's plan to release hundreds of interview transcripts in September. Their defense lawyers argued the transcripts could contain evidence relevant to the trial.
Prosecutors agreed to delay the trial of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and other members of that far-right group who are facing seditious conspiracy charges. In that case, the Justice Department conceded that the publicity around the House January 6 committee hearings and uncertainty about the release of transcripts warranted a delay of the trial to December.
But federal prosecutors said that, unlike the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers have not featured prominently in the House January 6 committee's hearings. And the uncertainty around the committee's anticipated release of transcripts is no reason to postpone the trial indefinitely, said assistant US attorney Jeffrey Nestler, who previously spearheaded the prosecution of the first Capitol rioter convicted at trial.
"[W]hether and when the Select Committee releases witness transcripts remains outside the control of the parties in this case, and the Court should not continue the trial based on speculation about whether and when such transcripts may become available," Nestler wrote in a 15-page court filing.
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