In recent testimony from the seditious conspiracy trial against leaders of the Oath Keepers, it was revealed that the group's leader, Stewart Rhodes, allegedly tried to warn former President Donald Trump of possibly "combat here on US soil" in the days after Jan. 6, 2021.
Jason Alpers testified on Wednesday in the trial, said that he had indirect connections to then-President Trump, and met with members of the Oath Keepers on Jan. 10, 2021, in the parking lot of an electronics store, The New York Times reported.
Alpers, a US military veteran, testified that he was asked to meet with Rhodes by a former employee who knew him because the Oath Keeper's leader had a message for the president. However, Alpers did not explain his connections to the former president during his testimony.
Rhodes was allegedly attempting to urge the former president to invoke the Insurrection Act. While Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers believed they were relaying a message to the president, Alpers secretly recorded the entire interaction.
That recording was played in court on Wednesday.
"If he's not going to do the right thing, and he's just going to let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles," Rhodes said in the recording, CNN reported.
The militia leader continued in the recording, saying, "We could have fixed it right then and there," referring to the capitol attack. He also said he would "hang f**king Pelosi from the lamppost."
Before the meeting, at which Alpers testified at least one person was drunk, he activated a thumb drive-shaped recording device and put it into his pocket to capture what was said amongst the men, CNN reported.
Alpers then said he approached a group of men he took to be the Oath Keepers he was scheduled to meet. He said that one of the men demanded to know who he was and made him put his phone out of reach in a nearby car, the Times reported.
Rhodes allegedly asked Alpers at the start of the meeting why Trump had not implemented the Insurrection Act, to which Alpers responded, "It's really hard to get to him right now."
The recording captured several other hot comments from Rhodes, including his ridiculing of Trump for not draining "the freaking swamp" and how if Trump failed to act, the former president's enemies would kill him and his family, USA Today reported.
"They are going to do to him and his family what happened to the Czar and his family," Rhodes said in the recording. "That's what's going to happen to the Trump family too. You know. It might be in prison – could be raped and shanked in prison – but they'll still wind up dead. That's the reality. And not just them, it's all of us too."
Rhodes did not deny that it was his voice heard in the recording.
Alpers also testified that Rhodes had given him a written message to deliver to Trump. The message was read aloud to the jury, and in it, Rhodes said, "Us veterans will die in combat on US soil fighting against traitors who YOU turned all of the powers of the presidency to."
Despite Rhodes thinking he was going to be in contact with the president, Alpers never sent the messages, describing them as "one-sided" and "extremist," fearing they would ruin his credibility if he passed them on.
This is not the first piece of evidence shining a negative light on the actions of the Oath Keepers to come out of the trial. Earlier this week, body cam footage from inside the capitol was released, showing what went on inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Another video showed members of the Oath Keepers being stopped by police in the days leading up to the insurrection.
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