Protection Seeks Distant Deposition of Oath Keepers Knowledgeable on Group’s Longstanding Position Offering Safety – #information
Retired Col. John Siemens, 76, would supply exculpatory testimony benefitting the 5 defendants within the Oath Keepers seditious-conspiracy trial, however can’t come to Washington on account of significantly declining well being, attorneys mentioned.
Two attorneys for Oath Keepers defendant Kelly Meggs petitioned U.S. District Choose Amit Mehta for permission to take a deposition from Siemens in Texas, the place he’s convalescing after struggling two strokes and two coronary heart assaults.
Mehta took the movement beneath advisement on Oct. 3, the day of opening arguments within the trial that’s anticipated to final into early November.
The movement describes Siemens because the “most vital organizer for a lot of Oathkeeper [sic] operations and occasions,” but prosecutors didn’t contact him or take his assertion.
Siemens joined the Oath Keepers in 2015 and has served as appearing president because the January 2022 arrest of founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III. He’s a senior vice chairman for the Oath Keepers, in line with courtroom information.
“… Nowhere within the operative indictment does the federal government acknowledge that the Oath Keepers, together with Mr Meggs, had supplied safety providers at quite a few occasions, together with for Roger Stone in Florida, at protests surrounding the dying of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and in Washington D.C.,” the movement mentioned.
Siemens was a participant on a Nov. 9, 2020, GoTo Assembly teleconference that was allegedly the beginning of the Oath Keepers conspiracy to assault the U.S. Capitol on Ja
n. 6, the doc mentioned.
He was additionally a participant in quite a few Oath Keepers encrypted chat classes utilizing the pc app “Sign,” the movement mentioned. Siemens has not been charged within the Capitol unrest.
“The federal government doesn’t in any other case seem to have made contact with Mr Siemens or obtained any data regarding his function with the Oath Keepers,” wrote Stanley Woodward, an legal professional for Meggs.
Siemens can present “vital background” on safety supplied by the Oath Keepers going again to 2017, the movement mentioned.
“Siemens can testify that between October 2019 and November 2019, the Oath Keepers had been recruited to help with safety particulars for Trump rallies in Texas and Mississippi,” Woodward wrote.
“Additional, Mr Siemens can testify that, due to the Oath Keepers’ popularity for offering a reliable safety element, starting in [sic] Might 9, 2020, Mr Siemens repeatedly supplied the safety element for Allen West, then-chairman of the Republican Celebration of Texas.”
The Oath Keepers say their function in Washington on Jan. 6 was to supply occasion safety and escort VIPs between President Donald Trump’s speech on the Ellipse and the venues the place they had been scheduled to talk.
Prosecutors allege the Oath Keepers conspired to forestall—by pressure if needed— the certification of the 2020 presidential election outcomes by a joint session of Congress.
They contend a cache of weapons delivered to the world by Oath Keepers and saved at a Virginia lodge had been for use in attacking the Capitol.
The Oath Keepers say the weapons had been there in case Trump invoked the Revolt Act and known as up a militia to defend the White Home towards a threatened assault by Antifa. The Oath Keepers’ Fast Response Forces (QRFs) had been meant to assist rescue and extract VIPs or different Oath Keepers if there was vital bother at any of the occasions.
Oath Keepers was based in early 2009 by Rhodes, a former U.S. Military paratrooper and onetime aide to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul.
The group is meant for anybody who took an oath—akin to army, legislation enforcement, and first responders—to defend the Structure from “all enemies, overseas and home.”
The Oath Keepers web site marketed the group’s mission to Washington days earlier than Jan. 6, 2021. (Wayback Machine/Screenshot by way of The Epoch Occasions)Oath Keepers served as a volunteer safety pressure within the wake of 2014 rioting in and round Ferguson, Missouri. The world skilled violence and arson after the dying of a black man, Michael Brown, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer.
Oath Keepers got here from across the nation to guard small companies from rioters and looters. One in all them was Natalie’s Muffins and Extra, a bakery owned by Natalie DuBose that was vandalized by rioters. Oath Keepers guarded that and different storefronts, and had armed members on the rooftops.
The failure to depose Siemens was one of many causes Rhodes sought to fireplace his two Texas-based attorneys three weeks earlier than the trial.
Choose Mehta wouldn’t enable it, however permitted Rhodes’ new legal professional, Edward Tarpley, as co-counsel.
Siemens’s testimony “will corroborate the assertion that the Oath Keepers have lengthy served to supply safety providers in addition to catastrophe aid, together with having supplied safety for rallies in Ferguson, Missouri and Louisville, Kentucky; help with border patrol operations; engagement with native legislation enforcement as neighborhood liaisons, in addition to hurricane and catastrophe aid in Houston and Puerto Rico,” Woodward wrote.
His testimony “would undermine the federal government’s assertion that the Oath Keepers had no lawful function for being in Washington D.C.; that the Oath Keepers group is a violent, anti-government group; and set up the Oath Keepers group’s prior lawful involvement as safety element for Trump presidential campaigning occasions and different comparable rallies,” the movement mentioned.
Siemens, who lives close to San Antonio, is a graduate of the Air Battle Faculty at Maxwell Air Power Base and earned a diploma from the U.S. Military Command and Common Employees Faculty. He served as a protection contractor check pilot and was a check pilot for Cessna for practically three many years.
From The Epoch Occasions
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