Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
An FBI document being kept from the public under court seal undermines the government’s seditious-conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers, shows that the indicted members of the group “are not guilty,” and “proves that the prosecution is lying to the jury,” a former Oath Keepers attorney said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times on Oct. 7.
Jonathon Moseley, who previously represented Oath Keepers defendant Kelly Meggs before his law license was revoked, said an FBI interview with a U.S. Capitol Police officer shows the Oath Keepers protected the officer from an angry mob near the Capitol Rotunda on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021.
“This document–together with a photograph of the moment inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6–proves that the prosecution is lying to the jury,” Moseley said in the statement (pdf). “No one who engages in seditious conspiracy or insurrection stops to come to the aid of the police against the mob.
“If the Oath Keepers were involved in any way in any insurrection or conspiracy to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, would they turn and stand between the U.S. Capitol Police against the mob?” Moseley asked. “This is not merely a good act. This is absolute proof that there never was any insurrection or seditious conspiracy. The prosecution’s entire case is a fraud upon the American people.”
William Miller, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, declined to comment on Moseley’s statements. “We typically do not comment on cases beyond our public statements and filings to the court, and have no comment,” Miller told The Epoch Times in an email.
The FBI document in question, a Form 302 summary of officer Harry Dunn’s interview with two special agents, came up in open court on Oct. 6 during the seditious-conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III and four co-defendants, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Thomas Caldwell.
Judge Issues Public Warning
Prosecutor Jeffrey Nestler informed Judge Amit Mehta that Moseley was “threatening” to release a sealed document. In response, Mehta took the unusual step of suggesting the news media covering the trial post messages to Moseley on social media saying that he would be jailed if he released the document.
“These public tweets from journalists reporting on Mehta’s public warning are visible as an incredible event in the already farcical prosecution,” Moseley said.
Two FBI agents interviewed Dunn on May 18, 2021, about the incident in the Small House Rotunda. According to video footage from an independent journalist, and portions of the FBI summary of Dunn’s interview reviewed by The Epoch Times, a group of Oath Keepers came upon a volatile standoff in the Small House Rotunda at 2:48 p.m. on January 6.
Dunn and at least two very agitated protesters in the crowd were shouting at each other. Dunn has said he did not have his finger on the trigger of his rifle, according to his FBI interview. A bullet was in the chamber but the firearm’s safety was on, he said.
Rhodes told the FBI in an interview that same month that Dunn shouted at the crowd, “I’m going to take as many of you [expletives] with me if you come for my rifle,” according to an interview summary obtained by The Epoch Times.
The Oath Keepers “got in between that cop and the Trump supporters and calmed things down and de-escalated the situation,” Rhodes said. “And protected–and protected him.”
In a March interview with The Epoch Times, Rhodes said the situation in the Small House Rotunda could have gone critical very quickly. The stakes in the situation were high, which is why the Oath Keepers stepped in to be a buffer, Rhodes said.
“If you’re armed and you got unarmed assailants, multiples coming at you, you’re in a lethal-force situation and you can’t let them take your gun,” he said. “So in that kind of situation, law enforcement officers will shoot.”
Kellye SoRelle, former general counsel for the Oath Keepers, told FBI agents in May 2021 that the people shouting at Dunn were “agitators.”
At the time, Dunn was guarding the stairs leading down to the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance. Dozens of officers were inside the building in that location, which was used as a decontamination station for police hit with pepper spray, according to bodycam footage reviewed by The Epoch Times.
Dunn said when the Oath Keepers approached him, he told them the protesters were fighting police, according to the FBI interview summary.
The Oath Keepers told Dunn they would be a barrier between him and the angry crowd, the FBI document said. Dunn said he “allowed them” to stand in front of him to keep the crowd “from getting down the stairs.”
Dunn told the FBI he was “not angry or scared” but rather “distressed inside.” He had his rifle “flush with his chest” in “Condition 1,” meaning a round was in the chamber, the FBI summary said.
Oath Keepers member Graydon Young said he and other Oath Keepers aided numerous people in need of first aid after they entered the Capitol Rotunda that afternoon, according to a summary he wrote on Jan. 8, 2021.
The Oath Keepers had reached the top of the east steps at the Columbus Doors and “got caught in [the] crowd and shoved in,” Young said.
‘Trying to De-Escalate’
“Once we were in we tried to discourage property destruction,” Young wrote. “I specifically yelled at people who knocked over a sign in the hallway and broke glass. That made us angry … we saw that as our property.”
Young said he approached a police officer and told her the Oath Keepers’ conflict was with Antifa, not law enforcement.
“We had been told that Antifa was in the crowd inciting the riots and they were the ones damaging property,” Young wrote. “We also knew someone had been shot and were trying to de-escalate.”
Young was referring to the fatal shooting of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby at 2:44 p.m., some 5 minutes before.
Young wrote that his team leader, “OK Gator 1” [Meggs] reported that he and a few other Oath Keepers “interposed between a police officer and the angry mob.”