Flim Meets Flam

"Oath Keepers" is the perfect example of how the manipulators turn it all upside down and inside out.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Four more indicted in alleged Jan. 6 Oath Keepers conspiracy to obstruct election vote in Congress

Four more Oath Keepers associates have been indicted and three were arrested in Florida in recent days in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, bringing the number of co-defendants charged in the largest conspiracy case from that day to 16, court records show.

Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Fla., Jason Dolan, 44, of Wellington, Fla., and William Isaacs, 21, of Kissimmee, Fla., each face multiple counts in an indictment handed up Wednesday and unsealed Sunday in Washington. The three appeared Thursday before U.S. magistrates in Tampa, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

The name of a fourth defendant not known to be in custody was redacted.

Attorneys for Dolan and Isaacs did not respond Sunday to requests for comment. No attorney for Hackett was listed. Hackett, a chiropractor who attended previous Oath Keepers events and a Florida firearms training school, was in federal custody as of Friday evening, online records show. Isaacs was released. The detention status of Dolan, whose LinkedIn profile says he is a resort security officer and former Marine who served more than 17 years including as a platoon sergeant in Iraq and recruiter in Massachusetts, was unclear.

U.S. prosecutors have criminally charged at least 19 alleged Oath Keepers or associates in the Capitol riots, including Jon Ryan Schaffer, an Indiana rock musician who is the only defendant known to have pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors say the Oath Keepers, a loose network of groups founded in 2009 that includes some self-styled citizen militias, target law enforcement and military members for recruitment with an apocalyptic vision of the U.S. government careening toward totalitarianism. Its members have provided security to some conservative politicians and causes in recent years.

The four new defendants are charged with conspiring to obstruct Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election in joint session on Jan. 6. They are accused of forcing entry through the Capitol’s East Rotunda doors after marching single-file up the steps wearing camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection and Oath Keepers insignia.

Prosecutors alleged members of the group were in contact with Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — usually identified as “Person One” by the government in court documents — and organized by charged co-defendants, including Ohio militia founder and bar owner Jessica Watkins, 38; former Navy intelligence officer Thomas E. Caldwell, 65, of Berryville, Va.; and Florida car dealer Kelly Meggs, 52.

Rhodes has not been charged and is not accused of wrongdoing. He has accused prosecutors of trying to manufacture a nonexistent conspiracy.

“I may go to jail soon, not for anything I actually did, but for made-up crimes,” Rhodes told Texas Republicans at a March rally in Laredo. He urged supporters of former president Donald Trump to “not cower in fear” and claimed the federal government “was trying to get rid of us so they can get to you.”

The other 12 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty.

In interviews with The Washington Post, Rhodes has disputed previous government allegations regarding his posts to an encrypted Signal group that included regional Oath Keepers leaders from several states at the scene, calling them an effort to call members together outside the Capitol to “keep them out of trouble.”

The latest indictment continues to add new details that reverse that chronology, alleging that Rhodes began discussing plans to keep Trump in the White House by force as early as last Nov. 9, and exchanging dozens of encrypted messages, phone calls and other communications with the Watkins-Caldwell-Meggs group before and during the riots.

On an online GoToMeeting conference that day — six days after the election — Rhodes allegedly told those in attendance, including Hackett, Meggs and Watkins, “We’re going to defend the president, the duly elected president, and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save our country. Because if you don’t, guys, you’re going to be in a bloody, bloody civil war and a bloody — you can call it an insurrection or you can call it a war or fight.”

So, what you're saying is, "We may have to start a civil war in order to prevent the start of a civil war."

Notice the subtlety of the recruitment pitch. They go after a bunch of guys who're perfectly comfortable with a top-down authoritarian organization, convincing them they need to fight in favor of installing an autocratic government in order to prevent an autocratic government from taking over.

"I'm gonna kick your ass to make sure you know that kickin' people's asses is the wrong thing to do."

It has a weird kind of internal logic that has always made some sense to most of us, but it makes sense only for as long as we can avoid looking too closely at it, and we're supposed to grow up learning that that's not how we do things now that we're adults - at least that's not how we're supposed to be thinking we do things as adults here in god's own America.

We've been in the process of losing something very important. Maybe we can start to reverse that trend by pointing out that the rule of law has to include everybody - that it doesn't mean you only have to follow the laws you and your gun-buddies think are OK - that even in a torn and tattered democracy, armed insurrection destroys everything you think you're fighting for - and that the people who have filled your heads with absurdities are now expecting you to commit atrocities.