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Stewart Rhodes Arrest, Indictment Is Concrete Proof Jan. 6 Was a Coup Attempt

Oath Keepers founder, conspirators are textbook terrorists

Manny Otiko
4 min readJan 16, 2022
Stewart Rhodes (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

If you had any doubt the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was a coup, then Thursday’s announcement that Stewart Rhodes, founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, is facing seditious conspiracy charges should end that. The Oath Keepers are an anti-government militia that is popular with former military members and police officers.

I count myself as somewhat of an expert in coups. That’s because I’ve lived through about three of them in Nigeria. I understand how they are organized and conducted and the end product. I also had to study coups when I was reviewing the history of other African countries. Unfortunately, violent regime changes (coups) are a common occurrence in the history of developing countries.

And Jan. 6 was a coup, albeit an unsuccessful and poorly organized one.

Plan of Attack

However, all the evidence of the coup attempt is now detailed in an indictment charging Rhodes and 10 other conspirators of planning to overthrow the US government. According to court papers, Rhodes and his co-conspirators spent months planning their attack. This included organizing training camps, buying military equipment such as a…

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Manny Otiko
Manny Otiko

Written by Manny Otiko

Manny Otiko writes about race, politics and sports. He has been published in Salon and LA Weekly. Follow him at @mannyotiko.bsky.social

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