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Oath Keepers leader found guilty of seditious conspiracy

Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers group, was found guilty Tuesday of seditious conspiracy over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, a win for the Justice Department as it pursues the little used charge for members of multiple extremist groups who contributed to the chaos at the Capitol.

Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy, while all five defendants on trial were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding. 

The trial brings the most significant verdict yet in a Justice Department investigation that has led to charges for more than 700 individuals but where many of its most high-profile cases, including other members of extremist groups, have yet to reach their conclusion.

Seditious conspiracy carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and hasn’t been used successfully since a 1990s terrorism case. 

The verdict is especially significant in the case of Rhodes, a Yale-educated lawyer who never entered the Capitol that day but instead communicated with other Oath Keepers as they forced their way into the building and through the halls of Congress.

While Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell were found not guilty on seditious conspiracy charges, each was found guilty on multiple other felonies that also carry up to 20 years in prison.

All four who faced charges of tampering with evidence — a group that excluded Harrelson — were found guilty.

The five were among nearly a dozen Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy, with four more facing trial in December.

Members of the right-wing Proud Boys are also due in court on seditious conspiracy charges next month, including the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, who, like Rhodes, never entered the Capitol and was not present in Washington that day.

Tuesday’s verdict capped a trial that stretched nearly two months, as well as three days of jury deliberations.

The government called more than two dozen witnesses in the case, including law enforcement officials and two Oath Keepers members who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.

Much of the case centered on a painstaking review of different text messages and Facebook communication among members of the group, with prosecutors repeatedly pointing to the “we” language used to solidify the coordination necessary for the seditious conspiracy charge, which requires “two or more people.” 

“They concocted a plan for an armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told jurors at the start of the trial.

—Updated at 6:03 p.m.

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What you need to know about Georgia Senate runoff

The midterms aren’t over yet in Georgia as incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker jockey for the state’s Senate seat in an intense runoff race after neither candidate scored more than half the vote in the first go. 

Here’s what you need to know as the runoff election gets underway:

The runoff is Dec. 6

The runoff election will be held Dec. 6, about a month after the November midterms and after a week-and-a-half of early voting.

Early voting started in some counties over the weekend after the Georgia Supreme Court denied a Republican bid to block a Saturday start. 

Early voting started statewide on Monday, Nov. 28, and runs until the Friday before Election Day, Dec. 2.

Georgians looking to cast their ballots in the runoff race need to have already registered by the Nov. 7 deadline ahead of the midterms.

Early voter turnout is breaking records

Georgia has seen high voter turnout throughout the midterms, and the runoff race is pulling in record numbers even weeks after November’s Election Day.

On Sunday, more Georgia voters cast their ballots than on any Sunday in the past three general elections, including this year, or in last year’s Senate runoff. 

On Monday, voter turnout broke the state’s all-time record for a single day of early voting — with more than 300,000 voters casting their ballots. 

The race could expand Democratic control of Senate

Democrats looked to Georgia throughout the midterms as an important pickup opportunity in their battle to keep control of the Senate. 

Unexpected wins in other states helped Democrats to 50 seats before Georgia’s race was called, but the seat is still key to determining the strength of the blue majority in the upper chamber. 

A Warnock win would put Democrats up 51-50, while a Walker win would rely on the tiebreaker vote by Vice President Kamala Harris — as in the current 50-50 Senate.

The candidates are neck-and-neck

In November’s general election, Warnock came in with 49.44 percent of the vote, just a hair ahead of Walker with 48.49 percent, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state. 

A new poll from Frederick Polls, COMPETE Digital and AMM Political released Tuesday puts the candidates deadlocked at 50 percent ahead of the runoff.

AARP released a poll last week that put Warnock ahead by 4 percentage points, though Walker was leading among voters older than 50.

The candidates have ramped up their campaigns and fundraising as the already tight midterm race stretches into December.

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McConnell condemns Trump dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday condemned former President Trump’s dinner with Nick Fuentes, an outspoken white supremacist and antisemitic organizer.

McConnell usually tries to avoid provoking any conflict with the former president, with whom he hasn’t spoken in nearly two years, but on Tuesday he let loose with pointed criticism.

“There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemtism or white supremacy and anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view … [is] highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States,” he told reporters at the start of his weekly press conference.

McConnell’s comments came a day after Senate Republicans across the political spectrum criticized Trump’s decision to host Fuentes and Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, at his dinner table at Mar-a-Lago shortly before Thanksgiving.

It was some of their most direct criticism of Trump since excoriating him on the Senate floor at the end of his second impeachment trial for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Ye has also provoked controversy for making numerous antisemitic statements.

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Progressives cool on finding an alternative to Biden

Progressives have cooled on the idea of finding a new leader to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2024, marveling at the successes of the midterms and crediting President Biden for once again surpassing expectations. 

The outcome is not perfect. Democrats will soon be in the House minority and will struggle to advance some of their legislative goals with the GOP in control.

But the strong performance in the Senate — where liberals gained an ally in Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and kept their majority — and slim losses in the lower chamber have also restored their confidence in Biden’s durability while quieting talk about a replacement. 

“I think what the midterms did accomplish is they silenced that,” said Cooper Teboe, a progressive Democratic strategist and adviser to a pro-Biden political action committee. “Even if Biden was running for reelection, I think we could have seen a few people run against him. But now, I think he’s got a clear field.” 

Fears of a November wipeout had left progressives talking privately about who might replace Biden. Some had talked about a desire for a younger candidate than Biden, who is 80. 

Prominent progressives, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with newer national possibilities like California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D), were often discussed enthusiastically among those desiring a more liberal choice at the top of the ticket.

But after averting a red wave, some of the same figures who were previously antsy have lavished praise on Biden. 

“I don’t know how he and his team have managed to do it, but during two years of the stress of the presidency, he actually seems more on it than he did during the campaign,” Teboe said. “He seems way more put together now.”

Newsom explicitly has said he won’t run for president in 2024, and Khanna, who has made useful connections in several early primary states, has given the president fresh credit for his achievements. 

Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), one of the most progressive Democratic senators, last week told WCVB5, a Boston-based ABC affiliate, that “if Joe Biden wants to run, I think we should all rally behind him.”

In the House, the leadership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus seems less willing to offer an alternative slate or even engage in speculation that Biden won’t seek reelection. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the caucus’s leader, admitted to being skeptical of Biden early on — even going as far as to say he wasn’t her “first or second choice” during the 2020 Democratic primary. She’s now pledged to support his reelection campaign if he formally launches one, telling Politico: “I believe he should run for another term and finish this agenda we laid out.”

The statement was a clear indication of the mood change on the left, where leading up to Nov. 8, progressives were growing frustrated over the party’s divided message focus. Now talk has shifted.

“What you saw particularly from the Biden administration and the rest of the Democratic Party is that there was a great deal of enthusiasm to support progressive policies leading up to the midterm elections,” said John Paul Mejia, national spokesman for the grassroots-led Sunrise Movement.

“Regardless of whether Biden is the nominee in 2024 or not, he has a responsibility as the leader of this country, who recognizes that democracy is tanking and crippling right now, to be able to buy in social trust from young people who will be the protagonists of saving it,” he said. “And I think the way he’s able to do that is by waging progressive policies.”

The White House has taken a victory lap over what it views as ample accomplishments. Nearly every major legislative push from the Biden administration has had an economic component, aides and allies point out, which ultimately helped voters swing blue in many critical areas. 

“Despite the narrowest congressional majorities ever, President Biden and congressional Democrats have delivered the biggest climate change package in history, empowered Medicare to negotiate lower drug costs with Big Pharma, stopped multinational corporations from gaming the federal tax code to pay no income taxes, and brought manufacturing jobs back to America, and given economic opportunity to student borrowers,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told The Hill on Monday. 

“The American people affirmed that agenda when they voted this month, including through record youth turnout,” Bates added. 

Indeed, young voters helped Democrats win in a variety of close races, further bolstering the president’s credentials as a unifier of different constituencies. That pitch helped fuel Biden’s first presidential bid and got cautious progressives on board. 

“Progressivism is coded in youth,” said Mejia. “The ability for Biden to mobilize young people was on those progressive impulses that he really acted upon in the weeks leading up to the midterms.”

“Who has the best ability to mobilize young people? Who will continue doing this? Who has shown a capability of doing this? That’s how I’m reading some of the simmering noise.”

Moderates who had embraced Biden more fully from the onset have expressed delight that the early chatter about progressive alternatives has subsided, at least for now.

“Those calls died down because Bidenism proved to be a winning strategy during the midterms and he was the most successful president, legislatively, of our generation,” said Jonathan Kott, who served as an adviser to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). 

“I don’t think those calls pick up again, because President Biden is the only Democrat who can win in 2024,” he said.

Should he run again, Biden’s message may sound strikingly similar to his first one. That is particularly likely now that former President Trump has announced a new presidential bid, a scenario that many in the party have publicly and privately hoped would materialize.

“He beat Trump once and can do it again as affirmed by [the] 2022 election,” said Larry Cohen, an activist leader and close ally of top congressional progressives, including Jayapal and Sanders. 

Progressives, like other Democrats, are now watching the clock. If Biden announces, those who have entertained exploratory phases are likely to continue their work, but with a different focus. They could shift their efforts to aid his reelection bid or to build a longer-term foundation for future runs themselves. 

“I think they continue doing it,” Teboe, the progressive Democratic strategist, said, referencing some of the early legwork. “I think they just push their time horizon from ’24 to ’28.” 

The rosier-than-expected outcome has afforded Biden time, some in the party believe. He’s unlikely to announce a reelection campaign before the Georgia runoff election on Dec. 6, when Democrats could pick up another crucial Senate seat, further cementing their control of the upper chamber and allowing even more negotiating room on contentious legislation. 

An additional Senate seat also would give Democrats a bigger boost in a swing state that Biden worked to flip blue in 2020, providing a case for the longevity of his personal brand and political strategy.  

“I don’t think he’s in any rush to announce,” Kott said. “It turns out good governance is a winning message.”

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McConnell says there’s ‘widespread agreement’ among leaders on need for omnibus

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announced Tuesday that there is “widespread agreement” among leaders in Washington about the need to pass an omnibus spending package next month, despite calls from conservatives to punt such decisions into next year.  

But the GOP leader cautioned there are “significant hurdles” to reaching a deal, which means talks could drag right up until Christmas to avoid a government shutdown.  

“We had a really good meeting. Laid out the challenges that we’re all collectively facing here. I think there’s widespread agreement that we’d be better off with an omnibus than a [continuing resolution] but there are some significant hurdles to get over to do that,” McConnell told reporters after meeting with President Biden and congressional leaders at the White House.  

He said that “for myself and I think the majority of my conference, defense and Ukraine” funding are “at the top of the list” of priorities.  

But he said Democrats’ request for increased non-defense discretionary spending is a “sticking point.”  

“We’re going to keep talking to each other,” he added.  

McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will meet Wednesday with the Democratic chairmen and top-ranking Republican members of the Senate and House Appropriations committees to discuss the outlines of the spending package.  

All four Senate and House party leaders met with Biden Tuesday. 

“We had a good discussion about funding the government. We all agreed that an omnibus would be better than a CR,” Schumer told reporters after the meeting.  

“We each laid out our criteria for the omnibus. Obviously they’re different but we’ve agreed to sit down as early as tomorrow, the four appropriators and the four leaders, to try and resolve the issue and avoid any government shutdown. So it was a good and productive meeting,” he said.  

McConnell and McCarthy agreeing on the need to pass an omnibus spending bill instead of a stop-gap spending measure or continuing resolution that would freeze federal funding until next year is a significant development.  

Conservatives led by Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have called for a stop-gap to last until 2023 to give Republicans more leverage in the spending talks once they control the House.  

But McCarthy, who is running to become the next Speaker, appears to prefer starting off the next Congress with a clean slate instead of having to negotiate a massive spending deal with Democrats while leading a narrow House GOP majority.  

Scott, in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner Tuesday, accused Republican leaders of “caving” to Democrats’ spending demands.  

“I ran for Senate leader because the current plan of routinely caving in and allowing Schumer and Biden to win must stop and because we must become a party with a plan to rescue America,” Scott wrote, referring to his unsuccessful bid earlier this month to challenge McConnell for the top Senate Republican leadership job.  

“Everyone says compromise is crucial in Washington. That’s fine. But it’s about time we stop compromising our principles and start making the Democrats compromise theirs,” he wrote.

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Congress poised to avoid crippling rail strike, enraging workers

Congress is poised to end the threat of a rail strike after President Biden called on lawmakers to force through a tentative contract agreement that some railroad workers rejected. 

The move would avert a national rail shutdown that would cripple the nation’s economy in the middle of the holiday shopping season. But it would also enrage rail workers who feel they were never given a fair shot at the bargaining table.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) aims to pass legislation this week to block a strike. Lawmakers don’t think they can wait until the Dec. 9 strike deadline to act, as railroads would begin to wind down their operations as soon as this weekend, shutting down key shipments and commuter rail lines.

President Biden said Monday that his administration saw “no path” to resolving the dispute at the bargaining table. Four of the 12 rail unions don’t have a contract with the railroads, including SMART-TD, whose train workers last week voted down the tentative deal negotiated with the help of the Biden administration in September. Though eight unions have ratified contracts, a strike by one union obligates all 12 strike.

“Congress, I think, has to act to prevent it. It’s not an easy call, but I think we have to do it. The economy is at risk,” Biden told reporters Tuesday during a meeting with congressional leaders.

The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, one of the rail unions that saw its workers vote down a contract proposal, said Tuesday that it was “deeply disappointed” by Biden’s decision, noting that the tentative deal doesn’t provide any paid sick days. 

“A call to Congress to act immediately to pass legislation that adopts tentative agreements that exclude paid sick leave ignores the railroad workers’ concerns. It both denies railroad workers their right to strike while also denying them of the benefit they would likely otherwise obtain if they were not denied their right to strike,” the union said in a statement.

Those scathing remarks echo workers’ grievances throughout the process — that railroad executives have refused to meet their demands for paid sick leave and more predictable scheduling because they know Congress would never allow a strike to take place.  

That threat of government intervention doesn’t exist in less strategically critical industries that have taken part in a wave of walkouts this year. 

Railroads transport nearly one-third of the nation’s freight, including massive amounts of fuel, water, produce, car parts and other items. Other modes of transportation such as trucking are stretched far too thin to take on even a fraction of the goods shipped by rail. 

As such, Congress is under tremendous pressure from corporate America to intervene, particularly as the holiday season ramps up demand for shipped products.

“Millions of e-commerce orders will be stranded in train cars for partial shipments, and intermodal cargo will back up and return gridlock to the nation’s ports,” Retail Industry Leaders Association President Brian Dodge told reporters Tuesday.

Hundreds of influential trade associations are lobbying lawmakers to stave off a strike long before the Dec. 9 deadline. Amtrak suspended several routes in September as railroads closed down some lines about a week before a threatened strike date. 

“For us, a strike effectively starts this weekend,” Corey Rosenbusch, president of the Fertilizer Institute, told reporters Tuesday, referring to shipments of fertilizer and other chemicals that would be the first to be shut down for safety reasons. 

The Association of American Railroads, which estimates that a strike would cost the U.S. economy $2 billion per day, released a poll this week showing that 72 percent of Americans want Congress to step in to ensure rail service continues.  

“Our entire nation would suffer: more than 750,000 workers, including many union members, would lose their jobs in just the first two weeks. Millions of families wouldn’t be able to get groceries, medications and other goods, and our economy would be paralyzed as it continues to recover,” Pelosi said in a statement Monday. 

It’s expected that the tentative deal forced through by Congress would only apply to unions that have not yet ratified contract agreements. The agreement provides workers with 24 percent raises over five years, including back pay, and makes it easier for workers to take time off without pay.

Labor leaders have been working with Democrats on language to give workers a stronger contract, and Pelosi said that the party is “continuing to fight for more of railroad workers’ priorities, including paid sick leave.” But at the same time, Pelosi said that the bill wouldn’t include any “poison pills or changes to the negotiated terms.”

“Joe Biden blew it. He had the opportunity to prove his labor-friendly pedigree to millions of workers by simply asking Congress for legislation to end the threat of a national strike on terms more favorable to workers. Sadly, he could not bring himself to advocate for a lousy handful of sick days,” Hugh Sawyer, treasurer at Railroad Workers United, a grassroots rail workers’ group, said in a statement. 

Still, it’s unclear how Democrats would get 10 Senate Republicans to go along with that plan. 

In September, GOP senators insisted that Congress force through a tentative contract based on recommendations from a Biden-appointed board that didn’t provide sick leave. Republicans balked at the idea of modifying the agreement to make it more worker-friendly and argued that labor unions were holding the U.S. economy hostage by pushing for better terms.

Asked about rail strike legislation following a meeting at the White House Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said only, “we need to pass a bill.” 

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McCarthy condemns Nick Fuentes but says Trump ‘didn’t know who he was'

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) condemned white nationalist figure Nick Fuentes after former President Trump dined with Fuentes and rapper Ye at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.

But McCarthy did not place blame on Trump.

“I don’t think anybody should be spending any time with Nick Fuentes,” McCarthy told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday after a meeting with other top congressional leaders and President Biden. “He has no place in this Republican Party.”

“I think President Trump came out four times and condemned him and didn’t know who he was,” McCarthy said. 

A reporter noted Trump did not condemn Fuentes’s ideology.

“Well, I condemn his ideology. It has no place in society — at all,” McCarthy said. 

Pressed on Trump attending the dinner with Ye, formerly Kanye West, who has also made antisemitic remarks, McCarthy said: “So he knew who Kanye West is, he didn’t know who Fuentes is.”

Trump said in a statement after the dinner that he did not know who Fuentes was and that he was trying to help West, who he described as a “seriously troubled man.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — the outgoing congresswoman who was removed as House Republican Conference chair last year over her continued criticism of Trump — had earlier on Tuesday pressed McCarthy to condemn Trump for the dinner.

“Hey @GOPLeader — where is your condemnation of Donald Trump for meeting with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, the pro-Putin leader of the America First Political Action Conference? I know you want to be Speaker, but are you willing to be completely amoral?” Cheney tweeted Tuesday.

McCarthy was also asked about connections that those in the House Republican Conference have to Fuentes, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who spoke at one of his conferences earlier this year. 

“She denounced him,” McCarthy said.

Greene said after speaking at the conference that she did not have an “alignment” with Fuentes’s views, but that her speech “was to talk about getting everyone together to save our country.”

Many GOP officials have condemned Fuentes in light of the dinner, but Republicans have placed varying degrees of blame — or not — on Trump.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is likely to be chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee next year, said Sunday that Trump “needs better judgment in who he dines with.”

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Biden calls on Congress to prevent rail shutdown: ‘The economy’s at risk’

President Biden on Tuesday told Democratic and Republican congressional leaders that the House and Senate must pass legislation to avert a rail shutdown, warning of risks to the economy.

Biden met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at the White House Tuesday where he told the leaders that it’s up to Congress to prevent a potential rail strike that could disrupt supply chains just before the holiday season.

“It’s not an easy call but I think we have to do it. The economy’s at risk,” he added, according to the Wall Street Journal. He also said that he is “confident” that a strike can be avoided, according to CNN. 

The meeting was intended to discuss legislative agenda items for the lame-duck session of Congress the rest of this year but Biden opened his remarks in the meeting by noting the rail strike would be a major topic.

“I asked for top leaders in Congress to come in and talk about what we’re going to do between now and Christmas,” the president said. “There’s a lot to do, including resolving the train strike.”

Biden on Monday called on Congress to pass a bill immediately that would avert a shutdown before a Dec. 9 deadline, warning of the disruptions to the economy if lawmakers don’t act. His plea to Congress comes amid an ongoing labor standoff that could shut down crucial shipments of food and fuel.

In response, Pelosi said that the House will take up a bill some time this week to adopt the tentative agreement that would avert a strike.

A tentative Biden-backed agreement in September was approved by labor and management negotiators, but not every rail union has signed on. That agreement would give union members a 14 percent raise, and workers whose pay had been frozen would get a higher wage increase and a boost in medical care. 

Biden said on Monday that he shares workers’ concerns about the agreement not including time to recover from illness or care for a family member, adding that he is working to advance paid leave.

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