Stewart Rhodes, founder of the citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington, on June 25, 2017.
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington, on June 25, 2017.Susan Walsh/AP
  • The former Oath Keepers member testified in the trial.

  • The Oath Keepers leader claimed to have a secret service contact.

  • Rhodes tried to talk to Trump on the night of January 6.

A former member of the far-right group testified at the trial that he was in contact with a Secret Service agent in the months leading up to the attack on the Capitol.

The trial of Rhodes and four others charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol siege was called to witness by federal prosecutors.

The Oath Keepers gathered weapons in preparation for the possibility that Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act and prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

"Not that I recall specifically," he said when asked if he knew of any connection between Trump and Rhodes.

He had a number for a Secret Service agent that he claimed to be.

The witness said he saw a phone call between Rhodes and his purported Secret Service contact at a Trump rally in North Carolina. He could not confirm that Rhodes was a Secret Service agent because he only heard one side of the call.

There is a mystery hanging over the prosecution of Rhodes.

On the night of January 6, prosecutors said that Rhodes tried to speak with Trump directly and urged him to call on groups to block the election of Joe Biden. Prosecutors said in a May court filing that Rhodes placed the call over the phone and urged the person to tell Trump to call the Oath Keepers.

The person who received the call hasn't been identified yet. According to the court filing, Rhodes turned to the group gathered with him inside the hotel suite and said, "I just want to fight."

In his testimony, he said he wasn't in Washington, DC, on January 6 because he was sick. He joined the group because he thought it was an extension of community law enforcement.

The first seditious conspiracy trial that has arisen out of the nearly 900 prosecutions connected to the Capitol attack was called to testify against Rhodes and four others.

In the early days of the trial, prosecutors have shown how the Oath Keepers stored a cache of weapons in a hotel outside Washington, DC, in case Trump invoked the Insurrection Act. In the months leading up to the Capitol siege, members of the Oath Keepers exchanged messages in which one of them wrote, "We aren't getting through this without a civil war."

The prosecutor said that the Oath Keepers "concocted a plan for an armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of democracy" The video footage of the Oath Keepers entering the Capitol in a military-style "stack formation" was shown to the jury by prosecutors.

"My only regret is that they didn't bring rifles to fix it," Rhodes said.

Rhodes is expected to testify in his own defense, as prosecutors plan to call more Oath Keepers to the stand. Rhodes' lawyer said on the first day of the trial that jurors would hear from him about who he is.

Business Insider has an article on it.