The federal judge who presided over the seditious conspiracy case against Oath Keepers members said Wednesday that it would be “frightening” to see the anti-government group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, pardoned for orchestrating a violent plot to keep Donald Trump in the White House after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Rhodes is serving an 18-year prison sentence after a jury convicted him and other Oath Keepers members of seditious conspiracy, the most serious charge stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters, the Associated Press reports. More than 20 judges have presided over roughly 1,500 cases against people charged in the Jan. 6 riot. Many Capitol riot defendants have asked for post-election delays in their cases, but judges largely have denied their requests and forged ahead with sentencings, guilty pleas and other hearings.
President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly has vowed to pardon rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta alluded to the prospect of Rhodes receiving a presidential pardon as he sentenced William Todd Wilson, a former Oath Keepers member from North Carolina who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. “The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved of his actions is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country,” Mehta said. Mehta isn’t the first judge at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., to criticize the possibility that Trump could pardon hundreds of Capitol rioters when he returns to the White House next month. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump nominee, said during a hearing last month that it would be "beyond frustrating and disappointing ” if the Republican president-elect issues blanket pardons to Capitol rioters.
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