By Steve Neavling
Four days after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, tried to convey a message to President Donald Trump, said he wished he had killed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and predicted a coming civil war.
Rhodes made the comments in a secretly recorded meeting in a parking lot with Jason Alpers, who testified Wednesday during a trial of several Oath Keepers members, including Rhodes, who are accused of taking part in a seditious conspiracy against the U.S. government, CBS News reports.
Alpers, a military veteran and software company founded based in Dallas, said the idea behind the meeting was to urge Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. Alpers claimed to have indirect access to the president.
“My only regret is they should have brought rifles,” Rhodes says in the recording, which was obtained by the FBI. “We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang [f******] Pelosi from the lamppost.”
Alpers handed the audio record over to the FBI.
