“A Tale of an American Political Prisoner”

Part 10.2: The Federal Courthouse; Washington, DC

–The “OathKeeper 1” Trial: Jury Selection–

by: Jessica Watkins (X: @J6ssicaWatkins)

A True Story; 100% verifiable with Court Transcripts, Evidentiary Exhibits, Court Documents and Testimony.

It took DAYS to trot out the entire Jury Pool. Each member seemed worse than the last. Many of the potential Jurors were an OBVIOUS “No Go”. It had gotten to the point where Judge Mehta would give us a signal. When it was obvious that a candidate was not viable, he would stop and ask “Any Objections?” This was to move things along, and not waste time. We had a LOT of Jurors to screen, and it meant that even HE was not convinced that the Juror was suitable. This happened a LOT. Because the January 6th Select Committee was ongoing (with Hearings occurring DURING our Trial), he also needed to screen the Jurors to see if they had watched the J6 Select Committee Hearings. If so, he had to ask if they had been “unduly influenced by the hearings and what they had heard”. Most of the time, they said “No, I can definitely set aside my biases and listen to the evidence fairly”. Yeah. This happened a LOT. So often in fact, that it was apparent that January 6th had influenced virtually every single potential Juror in some way. Some VISCERALLY, invoking emotions as their imagination conjured images of red-hat wearing Klansmen rampaging through DC with torches and pitchforks to slaughter their children. Then, following J6, the National Guard had checkpoints with machine guns and razor wire that they needed to drive past, just to get to McDonalds or the Liquor store. Their fears were only reinforced by the Democrats (whom they voted for), the Leftist Media, and even Joe Biden himself. They ALL portrayed us as the greatest threat to Democracy since the War of 1812. They called us domestic terrorists, extremists, insurrectionists… and of course the big one… white supremacists. So even though none of it was true, it had the effect of terrorizing the DC population; the very source of our Jury Pool.

As afraid as our Jury seemed to be of J6, it was equally apparent that the Jurors desperately wanted to serve on our Jury. After all, this WAS the famous OathKeeper trial. According to Joe Biden, we “…held a dagger to the throat of Democracy” (he repeated this line during his recent State of the Union actually). I firmly believe that everyone in our Jury wanted to be the famous one who “brought the terrorists to Justice”. My job was to watch each Juror closely for mannerisms, vocal inflections… anything that indicated that the Juror was biased unfairly against us. And there were a LOT of those. We had notepads, and we took notes on each Juror. We don’t get to know the Juror’s name, only a 4 digit number designation like Juror 9088. If 9088 winced when he/she heard any questions about guns… well, that was indication that perhaps the person was afraid of guns. If they were afraid of guns, maybe they hated the people who owned them. People like me. If so, I would put a “no” beside 9088. The DOJ Prosecutors often fought to keep the most biased Jurors in the Pool. It was contemptible! Their decisions were clearly motivated by inherent bias. They did whatever they could to make our Jury unfair. For instance, the woman who was in the “chat group” with Officer Harry Dunn. She KNEW Harry Dunn personally, and it was clear she had an infatuation with him. Harry Dunn was slated to be one of the witnesses, and the DOJ wanted to keep this woman… who clearly had the hots for the guy… on our Jury. And he intended to testify against us, despite the fact that the OathKeepers rescued his life that day. He was going to denounce us. So whose testimony would she be inclined to believe? Her man-crush, or the gun toting “white supremacist” that tried to “kill him for Trump”? Point being, the DOJ wanted DESPERATELY to keep her. Judge Mehta was on the fence, but ultimately struck her from the Jury Pool. This happened a LOT. The DOJ cared about only one thing: to make our Jury as biased against us as possible.

Once the Screening Process was finished, the Judge brought all the Jurors in to the Courtroom and seated them in the Gallery. Judge Mehta assigned numbers to each seat in the Jury Box, and instructed the Jurors to come forward if their number was called. Once the seats were filled with Jurors, it was time to make our selections. The DOJ had 5 strikes to use, and we Defendants had 10. So, if the DoJ or Defense attorneys didn’t want a Juror, a “Strike” was used to remove the Juror and replace them with another from the Gallery. We cut out the ones who were clearly biased the worst, but a fair number of them slipped through the cracks. One was an old man in the back row, center of the Jury Box. He stared DAGGERS at me the entire time; when he was on the witness stand, from the Gallery, and also from the Jury Box. I wanted the guy GONE, but in the end he would end up reading the verdict against me. He wasn’t the only Juror I strongly disliked. Many of them ended up being sworn in. I saw the way our Jury was headed; but frankly I wasn’t at all surprised. This is Washington, DC. Home of the Never-Trumpers. It was like 89% Democrat, 9% Independent, and 2% Republican. This is the town that thinks throwing bottles, bricks and fireworks at the cops is “Racial Justice”. This is the town where Lafayette Square was seized and turned into an Autonomous Zone. This is the town where the citizens laid siege to the White House for 3 days, burning St. John’s Church and forcing President Trump and the First Lady to evacuate to the Presidential Bunker. This is the town where the WWII Monument and the Vietnam Wall were defaced in the name of George Floyd. This is Washington,DC. And in DC, a Trump supporter (or even President Trump himself) can never get a fair trial. Period. That’s the point. And the DoJ was hellbent on keeping it that way.

The DoJ Prosecutors rigged our Jury the best they could. They deliberately used EVERY single Strike they had to cut anyone who was a veteran or had military family members. Yeah. That’s right, the DoJ didn’t want us to have PEERS. A Jury of our Peers would have had a NUMBER of Veterans, or families of veterans. Why? Because 4 out of the 5 Defendants WERE veterans themselves; Stewart Rhodes, Tom Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson and myself. It was DUTY that brought us to the Capitol on J6; a duty to protect Congressmen and VIP’s from Antifa. A former military Juror would also be unafraid of firearms or military jargon. In fact, they’d UNDERSTAND the military jargon,and LIKE our weapons. They’d see it for what it ACTUALLY was, and not for whatever lie the DoJ wanted them to believe. Veterans wouldn’t believe that we used a “Stack Formation” to breach the Capitol, because they would know what a “Stack” really is. In fact, that narrative would cost the DoJ credibility. It would make them look stupid. So, the DoJ decided get rid of ALL the veterans and their families from our Jury Pool. So much for a fair and impartial Jury of our Peers. When the Jury was finally selected, I think I actually approved of (or was impartial to) maybe 5 out of the 14. The rest I was adamantly against; I was convinced that they would not only be biased, but that they had already made up their mind concerning our guilt. But all my protestations over this would be unheard. Judge Mehta seated the Jury and swore them in. We were stuck with ’em. They would be present during the Opening Arguments and would be the ones reading out our Verdict. These people would either set us free, or send us to prison for Life. And Opening Arguments started Monday at 9am.