Hear the promises Stewart Rhodes made to his lawyers before Oath Keepers trial

Tonight Attorney General Merrick Garland says the tireless work of his Justice Department helped secure the seditious conspiracy conviction against Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes. We have an exclusive interview right now with Stewart Rhodes' attorney. Sarah Sidener is back with me to participate in the conversation. Thank you both for joining us tonight. James, I want to start with you. You said this was a fair

trial

and the government prosecutors, quote, criticized us, which is quite honest. So how important do you think it is that Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy? A rare conviction. It is a rare conviction.

Thanks for having us. I apreciate it. Overall, I think we had a fair

trial

. I think the jury was out for three days. And since he had a guest earlier tonight, he returned with a very interesting selection of not guilty verdicts and guilty verdicts. I think that shows the attention to detail they had and the attention they paid to the verdicts and the trial itself. The government reprimanded us. This was a brutal trial for all parties, long, extensive and with many evidence. And, you know, one person I want to congratulate is the target judge. Incredibly intelligent man and I loved his tone and demeanor in the courtroom and how he led the room.

In terms of Mr. Rhodes and his conviction for seditious conspiracy. You know, I would still respectfully say that while I respect the jury's statement on that, based on the evidence that I think was presented and what was given to the jury, I actually disagree with their conclusion on that specifically. Just after January 6, Phillip Rhodes said that, quote, the only thing he regretted was doing it on a recording that was later played by the government. Let's listen to that one regret. My only regret is... I tell you one thing, if President Trump does the right thing, it's the wrong thing. he should have brought rifles.

He regretted not bringing rifles. Do you regret anything now? Yes, Mr. Rhodes is sorry that some of the

oath

keepers

entered the building. They were not ordered to enter the building, and evidence emerged at trial that the people who entered the building were off-duty at the time. And he regrets that the officers were injured, they were not injured by his people but by the people in the crowd and that is something that he regrets. He did not order anyone to enter. There was no plan to enter and the few that did did so of their own free will.

I want to bring Sara Sidner. She has a question. I do. I was present at the trial that you and two other

lawyers

took in this very difficult case, there was a mountain of evidence. But Mr. Rhodes testified in his own defense defending this baseless claim that the 2020 election was, in his words, unconstitutional and he wanted to testify. That seemed to be very clear. Can you tell us if he tried to dissuade him or if he regrets that he testified on his own behalf? Which is also a very rare thing when it is a very rare position.

Absolutely, Sara. It's good to see you again. When Mr. Linder and I were first hired for this case, on January 24, and we went and met with Mr. Rhodes, he set two preconditions for us to represent him. One, he would testify at his own trial, no matter what. Second, he would never accept a plea offer. That was clear in the case, before the court. So it's nothing we could have discouraged him from doing to begin with. He is a Yale-educated lawyer and is very intelligent. If an individual chooses to agree or disagree with his or her belief system, we did with that type of client what was necessary.

We warned you about the legal and strategic pros and cons of waiving the Fifth Amendment and testifying. In his case it was never an option, nothing that we were going to be able to prevent him from doing. In terms of the unconstitutional nature of the election, Mr. Rhodes has done a ton of research and points you to Article II of the Constitution which requires the legislatures of each of the 50 states to pass amendments to -- I think you may have -- Yes. Mr. Linder, we're listening to some of the testimony that we

hear

d from Stewart Rhodes at that time and I don't know if we still have Mr.

Linder awake, you're back. Alright. I have a question here because you have said that he is going to appeal. And this is for you, Phillip, or for you, James. You have said that he is going to appeal. For what reasons, since you said you felt it was a fair trial and this jury returned a verdict that you disagreed with, but that was fair? I will address this issue. We think: Thanks Sarah for the question. It's a great question. We believe we spent a lot of time, over a week, selecting a jury, who we thought was a fair jury for the district.

From their verdict, you can see that they looked at each defendant and each charge individually and

made

separate decisions for each one, which is what they are supposed to do. And they spent a lot of time on that, several days. We believe we had a fair trial in that regard. However, as you know, and as I watched, there were things that the government presented as evidence that we objected to, and that we felt should not have appeared in evidence. There were things we wanted to present to the target judge, although I think he did a fabulous job, he prevented us from presenting them to the jury.

So the jury didn't get everything they needed to weigh everything. They got a lot of evidence, they got tons. But there were things that prevented them from seeing us and witnesses that we wanted to present and we couldn't. Based on that, we don't think that part is fair.