One of the most prominent figures involved in the infamous Jan. 6, 2021, storming of Congress returned to Capitol Hill Wednesday days after getting set free by President Trump.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was seen in the Longworth House Office Building while lobbying lawmakers for other rioters who are still locked up.
Rhodes, who donned a Trump 2020 hat, clarified to reporters that he hadn’t been invited by any sitting lawmaker in Congress and stressed that he was particularly seeking to get fellow Oath Keeper James Brown released, CBS News reported.
Brown had been arrested over the ransacking of the Capitol, but ultimately prosecutors charged him for a separate case for owning explosives, classified documents and illegally registered firearms.
On Monday, hours after being sworn in, Trump, 78, issued clemency for some 1,500 Capitol rioters who had been convicted and thrown behind bars.
Rhodes was among the most prominent to be let go. He had been about 20 months into an 18-year sentence for charges pertaining to seditious conspiracy.
Prosecutors accused the eye-patch-wearing troublemaker of planning for violence on the day of the Capitol riot.
Rhodes and his allies in the Oath Keepers, an anti-government militia group, had amassed firearms and tactical gear ahead of the chaos that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021.
“My only regret is that they should have brought rifles,” Rhodes lamented in an audio recording obtained by federal investigators. “We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang f–king [Nancy] Pelosi from the lamppost.”
The Oath Keepers founder had been caught entering restricted Capitol grounds. He later denied ordering his crew to barge into the Capitol itself and called the idea “stupid” during his defense testimony.
Still, he had poured thousands of dollars into buying weapons ahead of the riot and had coordinated with the Oath Keepers on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
“[Rhodes] pushed the idea among Oath Keepers members and others that with a large enough mob, they could intimidate Congress and its members and impose the conspirators’ will rather than the American people’s: to stop the certification of the next President of the United States,” prosecutors had alleged.
Trump defended his controversial decision to set the rioters free, which came alongside a directive for the Justice Department to pursue the dismissal of some 450 cases still pending.
“They’ve already been in jail for a long time,” Trump argued after approving the sweeping clemency. “These people have been destroyed.”
Many Republican lawmakers have carefully navigated questions about the mass clemency for the Jan. 6 rioters.
“It was a terrible time, a terrible chapter in America’s history,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters when pressed about the move and whether the rioters should be welcomed back to the Capitol.
“The president’s made his decision. I don’t second guess those,” he added. “We believe in redemption. We believe in second chances.”
