| Stewart Rhodes | |
| Birth Name: | Elmer Stewart Rhodes III |
| Birth Place: | Fresno, California, U.S. |
| Education: | University of Nevada, Las Vegas (BA) Yale University (JD) |
| Organization: | Oath Keepers |
| Known For: | January 6 United States Capitol attack |
| Criminal Penalty: | 18 years imprisonment plus 3 years of supervised release |
| Criminal Status: | Incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland[1] |
| Conviction: | Seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384) Obstructing an official proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1512) Tampering with documents and proceedings (18 U.S.C. § 1512) |
Elmer Stewart Rhodes III (born 1966) is an American former attorney and convicted seditionist. He founded the Oath Keepers, an American far-right anti-government militia.[2] [3] In November 2022, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering related to his participation in the January 6 United States Capitol attack culminating at the main campus of the United States Capitol complex. On May 23, 2023, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes III was born in 1966[4] in Fresno, California.[5] His father was a U.S. Marine and his mother worked on a farm. Rhodes wrote about his father abandoning his mother and him when he was three years old, and that he grew up with his mother and her Mexican-American family. In a 2008 blog post, Rhodes described himself as "mixed-race" and said he had "American-Indian" and Hispanic maternal ancestors.[4]
Rhodes attended high school in Las Vegas, then joined the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged after seven months, the result of a spinal injury sustained during airborne school.[6] [4] [7]
After attending community college, Rhodes switched to studying political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, while parking cars to make money. After graduating in 1998, he worked as a staffer for Republican Congressman Ron Paul. Rhodes volunteered for Paul's 2008 presidential campaign and later complained that political opponents of Paul linked Paul to hate groups and racists.[4]
In 2001, aged 35,[8] Rhodes enrolled in Yale Law School.[9] He became dissatisfied with what he perceived as eroding rights in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Rhodes taught a self-defense class, and his research paper about enemy combatants' classification during the presidency of George W. Bush won an award in his final year at Yale. He graduated in 2004.[4]
After graduating from Yale, Rhodes clerked for Michael D. Ryan, an associate justice at the Arizona Supreme Court. As a lawyer, he worked in various western U.S. states.[10]
On December 8, 2015, Rhodes was disbarred by the Montana Supreme Court for conduct violating the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct, after refusing to respond to two bar grievances filed against him in the federal district court of Arizona.[11] [12]
Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in March 2009.[13] [14] [15] The organization was launched in Lexington, Massachusetts, at the location of the first American Revolutionary War battle. The launch occurred two months into the presidency of Barack Obama.
Under his leadership in 2013, the Oath Keepers instructed its members to form "Citizen Preservation" teams, which included militias, to operate in communities across the US meant to defend citizens against the government intentionally letting the country descend into chaos then declaring martial law and scrapping the constitution, stating that "They are preparing to control and contain us, and to shoot us, but not preparing to feed us."[16] [17] [4]
Rhodes has collaborated with anti-government groups the Tenth Amendment Center and the Northwest Patriots.[4] The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies him as an "extremist".[18]
Rhodes is reported to have taken inspiration from the notion that Adolf Hitler could have been stopped if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders.[19]
Rhodes has promoted the discredited theory of nullification, asserting that U.S. states may disregard federal laws.[4]
See main article: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.
For two months after the 2020 United States presidential election, Rhodes encouraged his supporters to reject Joe Biden as the incoming president.[20] Rhodes spoke of a need to take up weapons to prevent Biden's inauguration and launched a campaign to persuade then president Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, and deploy the military and the Oath Keepers as a militia.
See main article: January 6 United States Capitol attack. On November 7, 2020, after the election had been called as a win for Biden, Rhodes joined a Roger Stone text chat group asking "What's the plan?"[21]
On December 12, 2020, Rhodes spoke at a Pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., along with speakers including Michael Flynn, Sebastian Gorka, Alex Jones, podcaster David Harris Jr., Nick Fuentes, and Mike Lindell.[22] [23] [24] [25] Rhodes called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, and warned that not doing so would lead to a "much more bloody war."
In the days prior to January 6, 2021, Rhodes and others traveled to Washington, D.C., where they armed themselves with firearms and tactical gear.[13] En route to D.C., Rhodes personally spent $20,000 to purchase "a small arsenal".[26] On January 6, 2021, Rhodes entered "restricted Capitol grounds" where he directed Oath Keepers members via telephone and text, telling them which positions to take up around the building.[27] Four days after the attack, Rhodes attended a meeting where he was recorded saying "My only regret is that they should have brought rifles... We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I'd hang fucking Pelosi from the lamppost."[28]
On January 13, 2022, Rhodes and nine other members of the Oath Keepers were arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy.[29] On November 29, 2022, after a nine-week trial, along with Kelly Meggs, Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy and evidence tampering in regard to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.[30] Their conviction was the first for seditious conspiracy since 1995.[31] Prosecutors sought a 25-year sentence which included a terrorism sentencing enhancement.[32] On May 25, 2023, Rhodes received an 18-year sentence and Meggs received a 12-year sentence.[33] [34] [35] Although Rhodes's sentence was the longest handed down, as of that time, to any of the charged conspirators,[36] the Department of Justice on July 12, 2023, filed notice of its intention to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for longer terms for Rhodes and his co-defendants.[37] Rhodes, Meggs and the other convicted Oath Keepers have also filed their own appeals. If unsuccessful, they will be on three years' supervised release following their prison terms.[38] Rhodes is currently serving his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland.[39]
Rhodes married Tasha Adams in 1994, after meeting her a few years earlier in Las Vegas.[40] When they met, Adams was 18 years old and working at an Arthur Murray Dance studio, and Rhodes was a 25-year-old college student. Adams worked as an exotic dancer to financially support Rhodes' education during their marriage.[41] Prior to their marriage, Rhodes accidentally shot himself in the face with a .22 handgun after dropping it, leaving him using a prosthetic eyeball.
Adams filed for divorce in 2018, accusing Rhodes of emotional and physical abuse. The divorce was granted days before Rhodes was sentenced for his part in the January 6 attack.[42] Adams and Rhodes have six children, including Dakota Adams, their eldest son, who uses his mother's maiden name;[43] Sequoia Adams; and Sedona Adams.[44] The family lived in New Haven and several states in the western United States.
Dakota Adams has said that his father was abusive to him, his mother, and his siblings; he said that Rhodes has sabotaged his children's homeschooling and that the family "lived in extreme isolation in one particular cultural bubble in increasingly paranoid and militant right-wing political spheres everywhere we moved in the country, until eventually we ended up in Montana."[43] Rhodes required them to line up with their backs to him at ATMs and gas pumps to be on the lookout for assassins, and to unload groceries from the family vehicle one-armed so as to have a hand free in case of attack.[45] The children suffered severe medical neglect and were illiterate, and Dakota only learned his multiplication tables at age 19 so that he could pass his high school equivalency test. In the spring of 2024, Dakota Adams announced that he is running for the Montana House of Representatives.[43]