Oath Keeper said Jan. 6 felt like a historical ‘Bastille’ moment

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Graydon Young, a member of the Oath Keepers group, said that the storming of the U.S. Capitol felt like “a Bastille time in history.”
• The far-right group traveled to Washington, D.C., to disrupt certification proceedings.
• Young pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in June 2021.

Graydon Young, a member of the far-right Oath Keepers group who took part in the U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021, compared it to the 1789 raid on the royal fortress in Paris that led to the French Revolution.

Young, who hails from Englewood, Florida, told the jury that he joined the group in late 2020. He said that he feared the election would be certified by Congress, despite then-President Donald Trump’s claims that there was widespread voter fraud.

Young said that he entered the U.S. Capitol with his fellow members on Jan. 6, 2021, aiming to disrupt certification proceedings. He compared the attack to the events that led to the French Revolution, when the Bastille prison was raided in 1789 to free opponents of the tyrannical Bourbon monarchy.

He stated, “I felt it was like a Bastille time in history.”

Federal prosecutors presented Young’s testimony as the latest evidence in the criminal trial against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and his four co-defendants, Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, and Jessica Watkins.

The five face charges on multiple felonies, including seditious conspiracy. The rarely prosecuted crime is defined as attempting “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the government of the United States.”

Oath Keepers were among the thousands of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. According to prosecutors, the group planned and formed a “quick reaction force” of armed members who stood by with a stash of firearms at a hotel in northern Virginia.

The defendants’ legal team argued that the group had no plan to storm the Capitol by force and only traveled to Washington on Jan. 6 to help provide security for speakers at political rallies.

So far, Young is the second Oath Keeper member to plead guilty and testify for the government in the hopes of getting a reduced prison sentence. Young took a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in June 2021.

On Monday, Young became emotional as he expressed his hopes that the U.S. government would consider how sorry he is when discussing his sentence.

Rhodes’ attorney, James Lee Bright, told Young, “Forgive me, but in listening to you … I haven’t heard you articulate an actual agreement with anybody to commit a crime.”

Young responded, “I didn’t explicitly say let’s go commit a crime, but I thought it was implicit.”

When asked if his words and actions were “spontaneous,” Young agreed.

Source: Reuters