g5000
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2011
- 128,889
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Two days after the 2020 election, Elmer Rhodes told his co-conspirators in a group chat, "“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit.”
On December 11, he told them, "It will be a bloody and desperate fight. We are going to have a fight. That can’t be avoided.”
On December 22, Rhodes told the Oath Keepers regional leader, “We will have to do a bloody, massively bloody revolution against them. That’s what’s going to have to happen.”
Leading up to January 6, Rhodes made some purchases:
- Two night-vision devices and a weapon sight, costing approximately $7,000 on December 30. Investigators say he shipped them to an individual in Virginia “near Washington D.C.” The package arrived on January 4.
- $5,000 worth of firearms and related equipment on January 1 and 2 that included a “shotgun, scope, magazines, sights, optics, a bipod, a mount, a case of ammunition, and gun-cleaning supplies.”
- While en route from Texas to Washington, D.C. on January 3, Rhodes spent approximately $6,000 on “an AR-platform rifle and firearms equipment, including sights, mount, triggers, slings, and additional firearms attachments.” The next day, while still en route, he spent another $4,500 on similar purchases.
One of the other seditionists messaged Rhodes after January 6, “We are excited to learn next steps and would like to know what we should be doing right now.”
Rhodes continued buying weapons after January 6. He spent $17,500 between Jan. 10 and 14 on scopes, magazines, firearm parts, ammunition, and related equipment.
On the day of Biden's inauguration, one of the Oath Keepers messaged another, “After this…if nothing happens…its war…Civil War 2.0.”