Attorneys for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes have called an FBI informant to testify in Rhodes’ defense against seditious conspiracy charges in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The attorneys they said an FBI informant was on his way to trial when he suffered a heart attack.
Greg McWhirter, who served as vice president of the Oath Keepers while reporting on the group for the FBI, was scheduled to testify Tuesday as a defense witness in Rhodes’ case, the New York Times reported. In an impromptu meeting Tuesday, Rhodes’ attorneys said McWhirter had boarded a plane to come testify for the trial, but had to be taken off the hook and hospitalized for a heart attack.
According to the New York Times, McWhirter is the second confidential FBI source they know was in a position to pass on information about the activities of the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021 to federal authorities. Rhodes’ defense team made the unusual move to call McWhirter to testify as a defense witness after federal prosecutors rested their case last week without calling him and several other cooperating witnesses to testify against Rhodes.
McWhirter, 40, previously worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Montana. He boarded a plane on Tuesday to go to federal court in Washington DC, where Rhodes is on trial, but lawyers said he was taken off the plane after suffering a heart attack.
Because of the medical episode, the FBI informant was unable to testify Tuesday.
Rhodes’ defense still wants McWhirter to testify. At the end of court proceedings Tuesday, Presiding Judge Amit P. Mehta said the court could accommodate McWhirter to testify remotely via video call.
Rhodes also testified in his own defense on Monday.
In court Monday, Rhodes said he was in a hotel room in Virginia when protesters entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He also testified that he never planned for Oath Keepers to enter the Capitol. that day for no reason.
Rhodes said his main goal that day was to encourage then-President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and use other legal means to challenge the results of the 2020 election, rather than disrupt the congressional process that day. day to certify the election results. Rhodes called the Oath Keepers’ entry into the capitol that day counterproductive and said they went “off mission.”
After prosecutors had argued in their case that Rhodes did not discourage rioting that day and went to the Capitol, Rhodes responded during his testimony by saying that he only went to the Capitol later that day to rally his supporters to leave the area.
During his testimony, Rhodes also rejected the allegation that he had a so-called “rapid reaction force” waiting in Virginia and ready to bring weapons to Washington, D.C. The Oath Keeper founder said he was not in command of that force. quick reaction (QRF). ), who had delegated most of the oversight of the Oath Keepers’ activities that day and warned the group’s members to be careful what they brought into DC, given the city’s strict gun laws.
It is unclear whether or how this QRF was ever involved in the events of January 6, 2021.
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