Oath Keepers leader sought to speak directly with Trump on Jan. 6: court document

On the night of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia asked to speak with then-President Donald Trump, to implore him to block the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, Business Insider reports.

According to prosecutors, Elmer Stewart Rhodes and other militia members gathered at a D.C. hotel and placed a call over speakerphone to an unidentified individual, where he "repeatedly implore[d] the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power."

When the person on the other end refused to connect him to Trump, Rhodes said, "I just want to fight."

As Insider points out, the revelation was the result of a court filing in the case of William Todd Wilson, an Oath Keeper who pleaded guilty Wednesday to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

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"Wilson is the third Oath Keepers member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges. Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama, pleaded guilty on March 2, 2022. Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia, pleaded guilty on April 29, 2022," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The statement continued: "As described in court documents, Wilson was an Oath Keeper member since 2016. He was a leader of a chapter from Sampson County, North Carolina. The Oath Keepers are a large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some of whom are associated with militias. Though the Oath Keepers will accept anyone as members, they explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military, law enforcement, and first-responder personnel."

"In his guilty plea, Wilson, a military and law enforcement veteran, admitted that he agreed with others to take part in a plan to use force to prevent, hinder, and delay the execution of the laws of the United States governing the transfer of presidential power. He and others used encrypted and private communications, equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and tactical gear, and were prepared to answer a call to take up arms."