Oath Keepers trial: Witness says he never heard members discuss plans for Jan. 6 violence

A prosecution witness who traveled to Washington, D.C., with fellow members of the Oath Keepers far-right militia in the days before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol testified Wednesday in the sedition trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four other group members that he never heard any fellow Oath Keepers discussing plans for violence.

During a cross-examination from the defense team, Terry Cummings, who was called to the stand by prosecutors, told the jury that he brought a rifle with him to the Washington area, attended a rally addressed by then-President Donald Trump and walked toward the Capitol as the riot unfolded but never brought his weapon into D.C. and didn’t hear discussions among Oath Keepers about attacking the Capitol.

Cummings, a 66-year-old Florida resident and National Guard veteran who worked for many years for the public transit system in Portland, Ore., said he became involved with the Oath Keepers after violent left-wing demonstrators associated with the antifa movement caused significant damage during 2020 protests there.

After initially participating in online Oath Keepers meetings and chats on Signal, an encrypted internet messaging app, Cummings said that in late December 2020 he learned that fellow members of the group in Florida were talking about traveling to Washington for a Jan. 6, 2021, rally at which he would have an "opportunity to express my First Amendment rights.”

At the time, Cummings told the jury, he was hearing a lot of talk about how Democrats allegedly stole the November 2020 election from Trump. He said he traveled to Washington with Kelly Meggs, a co-defendant with Rhodes in their federal trial, and brought an AR-15 rifle and a red plastic box containing ammunition.

Upon arrival in the Washington area, Cummings said, he and his comrades left their weapons and ammunition at a hotel in Arlington, Va., and stayed overnight at a different hotel in Washington, where gun laws are tighter than in Virginia. Cummings said he believed he could be helpful in D.C., potentially providing “assistance.”

On the morning of Jan. 6, Cummings testified, he traveled with fellow Oath Keepers to the Ellipse, located near the White House, where he and fellow Oath Keepers had badges enabling them to sit in a VIP enclosure with members of the group from other states for an anticipated speech by Trump.

Before Trump’s speech ended, however, a member of his group told him it was time to leave because the group had been asked to escort a VIP from the rally to the Capitol. As his group headed to the Capitol with the VIP, an African American woman whose identity Cummings said he never learned, he said he received a text message from a fellow Oath Keepers member that the Capitol building had been "breached."

When they arrived at the Capitol, Cummings said, he and his group saw a large American flag draped on the building and people milling around the grounds and others climbing outside walls.

While members of his group, including Meggs, wondered about going inside the Capitol, according to Cummings, he said he didn’t think that was a good idea because Vice President Mike Pence was inside the building. After leaving the group to take a bathroom break, Cummings said that after meeting again with fellow Oath Keepers he ran across Rhodes, who investigators say also never entered the building but directed the activities of others during the riot.

In response to complaints about police using tear gas, Rhodes said, “Suck it up. A little tear gas isn’t any big deal,” according to Cummings.

Cummings said his “understanding was that if there was a need for weapons determined by leadership, that people at the Virginia hotel would load the firearms and transport them into D.C.” But in the event no such transport of weapons happened, and he and other Oath Keepers from Florida would return there.

Under cross-examination from defense lawyers, Cummings initially said he may have seen several dozen Oath Keepers at that day’s events but then said there were only 25 or fewer group members going with him to the Capitol, or maybe as few as 10. During the course of the day’s events, Cummings insisted, he never heard any discussions among Oath Keepers about any plans to attack the Capitol or to riot, and never heard anyone ordering anyone else to enter the Capitol.

In response to questions from the defense, Cummings acknowledged it was his understanding that people would come into the city with weapons if things got violent. “If the weapons were brought and there was a need, I would use my own weapon,” he said.

But during the course of Jan. 5 and 6, he said, he was never told to retrieve his weapon, never advised that a Quick Reaction Force — the group’s equivalent to a SWAT team — that the Oath Keepers supposedly had on standby had been activated, and understood that weapons were never meant to be used offensively.

Rhodes and his co-defendants face multiple federal criminal charges stemming from their participation in the Capitol riot, including seditious conspiracy, a rare and politically controversial charge carrying a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Although Cummings told the court he was neither involved in any Jan. 6 violence nor heard of plans for such violence apart from possible self-defense, FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6-related investigations continued to cite in earlier trial testimony message traffic in the months and weeks before Jan. 6, much of it originally encrypted, in which Oath Keepers members and leaders continued to regularly evoke the specter of possible pro-Trump violence.

FBI agent Justin Eller said that at one point Meggs said Oath Keepers needed to "get to" people and "let them know who runs the country." FBI Agent Joanna Abrams, who’s based in the bureau's Washington Field office, was questioned about messages circulated among Oath Keepers. These included a message in which a Georgia Oath Keeper said, "I seriously wonder what it would take just to get every patriot marching around the capital [sic] armed!"

Trial testimony included messages linked to Rhodes in which he allegedly declared on Dec. 14, 2020: “He must do it. HE must act now so we can fight this war while he is [commander] in chief.”

“Millions stand ready,” one local group leader replied.