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A federal judge on Friday forbade Stewart Rhodes, the former leader of the far-right Oath Keepers group, and some other January 6 defendants from the 2021 attack on Congress from entering Washington DC, as well as the US Capitol within, as a condition of their release from prison.
US district court judge Amit Mehta wrote in the order on Friday that Rhodes, along with seven other defendants in the group, would need to be first obtain permission from the court before setting foot in Washington DC.
Rhodes, a former attorney who founded the militia group, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2023 for his role in plotting the breach of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump intent on overturning his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Also named in the order is Kelly Meggs, leader of the Oath Keeper’s Florida chapter serving a 12-year prison term, who is said to have led insurrectionists into the Capitol through a “stack” formation – a calculated military tactic used in building raids.
Biden’s victory was certified in the early hours of the following day after lawmakers ran for their lives as the mob rampaged through the Capitol and tried to hunt some down, leading to an enormous federal criminal investigation.
Rhodes was among 1,500 controversially given blanket pardons or commutations by Trump soon after he was sworn in as the 47th president last Monday. He commuted Rhodes’s sentence of 18 years for seditious conspiracy and the far-right leader left prison early on Tuesday and was later spotted drinking coffee on Capitol Hill.
