“A Tale of an American Political Prisoner”

Part 11.2: The Federal Courthouse; Washington, DC

–The “OathKeeper 1” Trial: The Defense Case In Chief Part 2–

by: Jessica Watkins (X: @J6ssicaWatkins)

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

After Whipp testified, everything seemed to be going pretty well. I was glad to see that the Jury seemed receptive to hearing OUR argument; the Government’s Case in Chief was a total s***show. I just wanted us to undo as much of the mess as possible, to set the record straight. But just when we started to fix the damage, Stewart Rhodes took the stand to testify on his own behalf. I held my breath in anxiety as he walked up to the witness stand and was sworn in. Now look, I like Stewart as a person; he’s generous, kind hearted, smart, and has a warm personality. But he has flaws too; one of which is that he likes the sound of his own voice. He likes to talk, and ever more so, he likes it when people listen. Our Deep Blue DC Jury was FINALLY getting to hear our side of the story; I was concerned that Stewart would try to push our Conservative world-view on an unwilling and unreceptive audience. Worse yet, is that his eyepatch and beard makes him look like a pirate or some kind of pudgy supervillain. (no offense to Stewart, but he’s gotta know it’s true). Anyway, I was worried that he would turn the witness stand into a pulpit; that he would self aggrandize and start rambling on about politics. As open as our Jury seemed to be to hearing the truth about January 6th, I think they would have shut down HARD if he started talking about stolen election stuff and pathways for Trump to legally overturn said election. Would he have been correct? Sure, of course! I am telling you right now that I don’t believe the results of the 2020 election, and I believe that Congress and President Trump had every right to contest the results lawfully. I also believe our DC Jury didn’t want to hear anything about that. What they NEEDED to hear is about why we came to DC on January 6th.

Our plans for that day were very well articulated: to protect VIP’s and Congressmen. What the Jury needed to hear him talk about, is the burdens of running Protective Details; about the challenges in providing security, screening personnel, setting up a perimeter, and performing crowd control on unruly counter-protesters. Not Antifa. Counter-protesters. As my attorney Jonathan Crisp so eloquently stated before MY testimony, “Do NOT mention Antifa. Half of your Jury probably ARE Antifa, or they know someone who is. Don’t refer to them as Antifa, call them Counter-protesters.” It was advice I took to heart, and I was hoping Stewart would as well. Stewart took the stand and was sworn in, and immediately he put the Jury to sleep. There was a LOT of talk about the Constitution, Article 2 or some such. Frankly, as interesting as it all was. waking up every morning at 4am was wearing me down. Even I had a hard time staying awake and following the testimony. And that’s ME, someone who LOVES the meat and potatoes of Constitutional arguments. My Jury looked bored stiff. I wasn’t impressed. Then Stewart moved on to talking about the Insurrection Act, which was equally as boring. He talked about the minutiae of what a militia “is” and “is not”. In my humble opinion, the testimony didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. It took half a day to get to January 6th before relevant testimony was brought forward.

See, the thing is… Stewart didn’t really DO anything on January 6th, so there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. He spent all of like 15 minutes on Capitol Grounds, never went inside the building, and even from the Government’s argument, all he really did was walk around and take a video. I didn’t even know that he was there until the following day. The Government’s argument boiled down to an alleged “3 Way Call” between Rhodes, Meggs and Whipp. But nobody could remember any phone call, and even more nefarious… the government lied about it, and witheld the evidence. More on that later. Anyway, the point being this: he didn’t direct us to attack the Capitol at any point. I never heard his name brought up once the entire day. He stated as much during his testimony, that, “I had no idea Jessica Watkins was even at the Capitol that day. I found out later when she needed help with an attorney.” Yeah. For me, I didn’t realize HE was there until January 7th; I saw some message that he posted with a picture of the Capitol that said “I love the smell of teargas and marijuana in the morning” (a parody of Apocalypse Now). Anyway, Stewart continued to testify, indicating that he didn’t show up until J6 was essentially over. After the Million MAGA March debacle, I was a mite disgruntled with the way PSD’s were being handled. If I had thought he was going to be running the Congressional PSD for January 6th, I wouldn’t have come. Flat out. As I told Crowl in a text message “…Stewie won’t be there”. I thought it was odd, but it definitely factored into my decision whether to attend or not. But essentially, he WASN’T there. Worse yet, his cell phone wasn’t working, so he essentially just bumbled around looking at things, and took a video. OK, let’s talk about the “3 Way Call” that the Government invented for their Case In Chief.

The Government had claimed that Stewart, Whipp, and Meggs had gotten on a “3 way Conference call” together, and even showed a picture of Stewart walking across the grass looking at his phone all pissed off. Turns out, the “3 way phone call” never connected! You know how when you get an incoming call, and you hop to the other line? It was one of those kinda situations. Only, the call durations were like 0 seconds. The cell towers were overloaded! The Government had the data that proved there WAS NO CALL, But they lied, and during their Case in Chief, they explicitly said there WAS. Like, for an hour or two! They PUSHED and PUSHED, trying to make this “3 Way Call” situation work in their favor. They used that nonexistent call as “evidence showing coordination of an attack on the Capitol” and yet, they had the data to prove that it did not happen. They just withheld the evidence from the Defense team, and created a narrative that suited their needs. This was exposed only recently; that the Government deliberately lied about this phone call, withheld the evidence, and then used this evidence to secure a Guilty verdict against Stewart Rhodes. This isn’t the only instance of that. As I mentioned earlier, they crafted a Call Log for ME out of thin air. But more on that during MY Case in Chief. The Government was playing dirty, inventing evidence for our trial, lying to our Jury, and then withholding the ACTUAL evidence from the Defense. All the Defense had was the testimony that no phone call occurred; both from Whipp and now also from Stewart. As far as I could tell, based on the Government’s arguments, Stewart showed up at the Capitol Building, took a video of people waving flags, and then later met up with a group of OathKeepers as they left the area. Then they went to Olive Garden. During the testimony, he discussed Kelly Meggs telling him that he had gone into the Capitol, and Stewart said “…that was stupid.” Stewart’s testimony ended his Case In Chief, and little was gleaned. I WOULD say it was a waste of time, but exposing the truth on the record is never a bad thing.