Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right Oath Keepers group, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. It is the longest sentence handed down so far to any participant in the January 6 insurrection, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the halls of Congress to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory. One of Rhodes’s associates, Kelly Meggs, who led the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison. A jury had convicted both men of seditious conspiracy in November. The sentences are a “substantial win for democracy,” says Kristen Doerer, who reports on right-wing extremism and followed the case.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.