A member of the Oath Keepers says the founder of the far-right militia group was on the phone with an intermediary of former president Donald Trump on the day of the Capitol riots and made an extraordinary request.
William Todd Wilson, 44, pleaded guilty Wednesday in D.C. federal court to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding over the Jan. 6 attack, NBC News reported.
Court documents state that, sometime after 5 p.m. on Jan. 6, Wilson and some of his fellow Oath Keepers were in a private suite at the Phoenix Hotel when the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, called an unidentified Trump intermediary and put the person on speaker phone.
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“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the Justice Department said.
The intermediary declined to let Rhodes speak with Trump, the document says, but it didn’t appear to deter him. “Thousands of ticked off patriots spontaneously marched on the Capitol... You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he texted the group via encrypted chat at 7:30 p.m.
In his guilty plea, Wilson, a military and law enforcement veteran, admitted that he agreed with others to take part in the Capitol riots.
The documents state that Wilson joined the Oath Keepers in 2016 and on Jan. 6 last year was under the instruction of Rhodes, who was arrested in January for his alleged part in the riot.
“They coordinated travel across the country to enter Washington, D.C., equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and tactical gear, and were prepared to answer Rhodes’s call to take up arms at Rhodes’s direction,” prosecutors said. “William Todd Wilson, attempted to, and did, corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding, that is, the Certification of the Electoral College vote.”
Shortly after 2 p.m. on the day of the insurrection, Wilson and others in his group bypassed barricades and he was the first of the Oath Keepers to breach the Capitol through the upper west terrace doors. “Wilson was armed with a pocketknife and wore a neck gaiter and beanie hat to mask his appearance,” prosecutors said. He left the Capitol at 2:55 p.m.
Prosecutors alleged that Wilson and his co-defendants were “continuing to plot, after January 6, 2021, to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force.”
In late Jan. 2021, Wilson threw his cell phone into the Atlantic Ocean “to prevent law enforcement from discovering incriminating evidence about his participation in this conspiracy,” prosecutors said.
He faces up to 20 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and up to 20 years for obstruction of an official proceeding. No sentencing date has been set.
Wilson is the third Oath Keeper to plead guilty over the Jan. 6 attack following former Roger Stone bodyguard Joshua James, and Brian Ulrich, 44. As part of their plea deals, both men agreed to cooperate with the feds.
Almost 800 people have been arrested in relation to the Capitol riot with more than 250 having already pleaded guilty.
Read it at NBC News
