One of the most high-profile individuals charged in connection with the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol appears to be having recriminations about aligning himself with then-President Donald Trump.
Stewart Rhodes, founder and leader of the far right group Oath Keepers, told The Intercept in a just published interview that he is disappointed that Trump didn't follow through on his pledge that January morning to join "Stop the Steal" supporters in their march to Capitol Hill to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Rhodes spoke of what he sees as Trump’s betrayal with reporter Mike Giglio: “On January 6, he told all his followers, you know, now we are going to march on the Capitol, and I’ll be with you. And he just ghosted. Didn’t show up at his own party.” Trump, he continued, has left his supporters to face the investigation on their own, offering no financial or legal support to the people it targeted: “It’s like we don’t exist.” To Trump and the other big players in the “Stop the Steal” movement, he said, the Oath Keepers were “nothing. Cannon fodder.”
The group's leader expressed a sense of disillusionment with Trump, whom the militant crowd had treated as a champion and standard-bearer. Seventeen people with alleged links to the Oath Keepers have been arrested. Some of them cannot afford defense attorneys and are being represented by public defenders.
Meanwhile the former president plays golf multiple times per week in Florida and jets off to give speeches and fundraising for himself, but not for his supporters. Trump, Rhodes lamented in the interview, had failed to even issue pardons for January 6 suspects on his way out of office.
Rhodes was arrested Jan. 13 after being charged with seditious conspiracy for allegedly guiding a months-long effort to use political violence to prevent the swearing-in of President Biden. He has been ordered held without bail until trial.
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