
Day 14 of Oath Keepers Trial
With Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes having just tested positive for COVID, Judge Mehta's biggest fear has been realized. (He likes to move things along rather quickly.)
When the mask mandate was lifted here at the District Courthouse last week, he still required them in HIS courtroom, specifically to avoid a COVID event that would cause delays of an already long trial. Expected to last 6-8 weeks, without disruptions of this sort.
There's some talk that Mehta might proceed with Rhodes watching the trial via remote video, but at present his attorneys say he is quite ill, so a delay of at least a couple days seems inevitable.
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Judge Mehta enters courtroom at 9:35am.
Mehta greets everyone with the bad news of the day, regarding Rhodes having tested positive for COVID. He says that it is the DC Detention Center’s policy for a 10-day quarantine, but is hoping that they will allow for the CDC policy of only 5 days.
Rhodes’ attorney, Linder, came forward to present several option to the court for continuing to move forward. Obviously, the possibility of a zoom link to the jail. He also proposed finishing Agent Drew’s cross exam without Rhodes, and even knocking out a couple of what he called “inconsequential [prosecution] witnesses” - who had nothing to do with Rhodes’ case, without Rhodes in the courtroom. But, of course, that has to be approved by Rhodes, directly, who is currently in total isolation. They are trying to get a phone to him, in jail, so they can consult with him. Linder even presents the idea of transporting Rhodes to an isolated room in the courthouse to get video feed, but Mehta says he will not ask any US Marshal to be exposed to Rhodes while he is “symptomatic and totally transmittable.”
Rhodes lead attorney, Tarpley, come forward to report his most recent conversation with the Detention Center officials, who have said they WILL NOT bring him out of isolation for a phone call - even to consult with his attorneys - and that he will remain in total isolation. Jailers will not even update his attorneys until at least noon today.
Mehta: “We will be in recess until tomorrow morning.”
That’s all for today, folks.
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Updated thoughts on OKs trial delay: Although Judge Mehta and the defense attorneys wish to move this along as quickly as possible, even having Rhodes consent to participating through a Zoom link, several factors are involved . . .
1st - Rhodes must consent. He cannot be compelled to do this via Zoom, though his own attorneys have conveyed their willingness to do so - because they also have other clients, cases, and trials on their schedules. A long delay here, creates a negative scheduling domino effect for virtually every party involved in this trial.
2nd - The DC Detention Center is an entirely different regime, and they are COVID crazy. As I’ve previously reported, several of the defendants are not CVD-vaxxed, and the jailers have been particularly harsh in their treatment toward those individuals. They also require a 10-quarantine for those testing positive, (despite the CDC’s 5-day recommendation), and they require the prisoner to remain in total isolation during that time. (On a side note: the jury has not been told which of these defendants are being held in pre-trial detention, or for how long they’ve been held - though it’s unlikely they do not already know of the detentions from news media reports prior to their selection as jurors - but it is a verboten subject in the courtroom. Of the five defendants only Thomas Caldwell is not being held in detention.)
3rd - Judge Mehta has already stated he will not subject the US Marshals - who are responsible for daily transfer of the defendants from detention to the courtroom - to possible exposure. This is only a factor based on Rhodes’ attorney offering to have him transferred to an isolated room in the courthouse for the Zoom hook-up, one which the Marshalls could also veto even if the Detention Center and Mehta agreed.
4th - Two of the other defendants’ attorneys have expressed their doubts - directly to me - that Rhodes will even agree to the Zoom link from jail, regardless of the pressure he receives from his own legal team, and what accommodations are offered. They also said they didn’t think the Detention Center will cooperate unless they get direct pressure from Attorney General Merrick Garland. Even then, he has no legal authority over them.
5th - It was already pretty much a foregone conclusion that the DOJ and Nancy Pelosi were not going to get their 5 pounds of flesh before the midterm elections - which many of us believed eas the reason behind the denials for further continuances in this trial date - but that most certainly is not going to happen, now. The prosecution had stated last week that they intended to rest their case “sometime this week.” That too is now highly unlikely.
We’ll know more tomorrow morning, and I’ll give an update, before, if I hear anything new directly from the trials participants. Stay tuned . . .