• USA Nancy Pelosi, about Trump, during the assault on the Capitol: "I want to break his face"

In the United States, someone is convicted of 'seditious conspiracy' - that is,

planning to overthrow the

country's government - is very rare.

For that person to be an American, it is even more so.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right militia Oath Keepers - 'those who keep the oath' - was convicted yesterday of that crime for his acts in the assault on the Capitol, on January 6, 2021, when followers of Donald Trump tried to prevent the ratification of Joe Biden's electoral victory in the November 2, 2020 elections. Another member of the 'Oath Keepers', Kelly Meggs, has also been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Three more members of the group have received other sentences on other charges.

Rhodes and Meggs have also been found guilty of obstructing the activities of the US state.

The combination of that crime and that of conspiracy could get him sentenced to 40 years in prison, although the application of maximum sentences is rare in these cases.

The other three defendants - Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson, and Thomas Caldwell - have been found guilty of obstructing the business of the State, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

The Rhodes and Meggs conviction has enormous

symbolism

.

On the one hand, it is, by far, the most serious against any of the hundreds of defendants for the assault on the Capitol, although three other members of the 'Oath Keepers' had already pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, it is a crime that has usually been applied to Islamic terrorists (in the 1990s), Puerto Rican independence fighters (in the 1950s and 1980s), but not to Americans.

In fact,

not even Osama bin Laden was found guilty of seditious conspiracy.

But it is also a condemnation of US ultranationalist movements, such as the 'Proud Boys' - whom

Donald Trump

asked to be "attentive" on the eve of the 2020 elections -, the 'Three Percenters', or the 'Bugaloo '.

They are, more than organizations, movements.

As the Prosecutor's Office has pointed out in the Rhodes trial, the 'Proud Boys' are an amalgamation of groups with a very loose organization, although united by the conviction that the citizens of the United States are being stripped of their rights by the federal State .

The case of Rhodes is especially relevant.

She is a brilliant person, coming from a family of low-income immigrants-grandparents, day laborers, a single mother-who studied law at Yale University, one of the most important academic centers in the world.

She was a supporter of former Republican congressman Ron Paul, leader of the 'libertarian' faction - that is, ultraliberal - of that party, from which some of the most extreme elements of the so-called American 'white nationalism' have emerged.

From the age of 26 her political positions became more and more radical, which led her to create the 'Oath Keepers' in 2009. Her leadership in that group has been highly contested.

Of course, calling the 'Oath Keppers' a "group" is an exaggeration,

an assault plan

The jury has accepted the theses of the accusation that the 'Oath Keepers' entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021

in an organized manner, "in military formation",

and following a previously established plan.

Although they had prepared on the Potomac River, which surrounds that part of the city of Washington, a barge with heavy weapons, they did not try to bring it closer to the city.

Prior to the action, the 'Oath Keepers' had exchanged messages on social networks announcing their intentions.

Former President Donald Trump, who has already run as a candidate in the 2024 elections, has declared on several occasions that, if he wins, he will pardon and release the capitol raiders convicted by the judges.

"We are going to treat them fairly. And if that needs pardons, then we will pardon them. Because they have been treated very unfairly," Trump said in January, to cheers from his supporters, at a rally in Texas.

In September he repeated the promise.

Several Republican congressmen, such as Marjorie Taylor-Greene (from Georgia), and Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs (both from Arizona) have expressed their sympathy for the assailants, whom they have visited in jail and

described as "political prisoners"

who they are subjected, according to Taylor-Greene, "to torture".

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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