Oath Keeper Founder Warns Donald Trump: “You’re Going to Be Found Guilty if You Try to Go to Trial”

Former President Donald Trump is being warned that he is about to be "railroaded" by prosecutors. This warning comes from Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right anti-government group, Oath Keepers. Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy in connection with the events of the January 6, 2021 capitol riots, The Washington Times reported.

In an interview, Rhodes told the publication he suspects that special counsel Jack Smith is attempting to sway Trump's closest circle against him in order to turn possible witnesses who might be able to clear the former president of his charges. “They’re going to do the same thing to President Trump that they did to me,” Rhodes warned the former president from the D.C. Department of Corrections Central Detention Facility, where he is kept in isolation.

The far-right group's chief further warned, “You’re going to get railroaded. You’re going to be found guilty if you try to go to trial. So everyone’s been demoralized and more likely to take a plea deal and agree to ‘test-a-lie’ against President Trump.”

In addition to a second 34-count felony indictment in Manhattan over alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, Trump is facing a 37-count federal indictment on charges that he handled secret documents improperly at Mar-a-Lago. Smith is also separately looking into his involvement in the uprising on January 6 and for interfering with Georgia's Fulton County's 2020 election.

As noted by Associated Press, Rhodes graduated from Yale Law School and served in the Army as a paratrooper before founding the far-right group Oath Keepers in 2009. At the conclusion of a two-month federal trial, he and Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Oath Keepers Florida Chapter, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.

They are among the 11 defendants of the January 6 case who have so far faced seditious conspiracy charges. Eight of them have either been found guilty or entered pleas of guilty. The three other defendants were found guilty of less serious felonies. “They threatened [witnesses] with life in prison,” said Rhodes. “That’s what’s going to happen to President Trump.”

According to Rhodes, federal prosecutors forced Oath Keepers members to testify against Rhodes and four other militia members who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and given sentences ranging from 36 to 54 months in prison. Rhodes said, “I didn’t enter the Capitol, but I was still found guilty by a D.C. jury of obstructing an official proceeding even though I didn’t even go inside. And I was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, although they had zero evidence of an actual plan." Stating how they used his words and not his actions for convicting him of seditious conspiracy, he said, "They just used my speech. It will be the same thing with President Trump.”