Oath Keepers approach the U.S. Capitol in “stack” formation, prosecutors say in this indictment of nine members. The arrow points to Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs.
Attorneys for two Oath Keepers cannot file a “bombastic” document apparently comparing COVID-19 vaccines to the Holocaust, a federal judge ruled in an extraordinary order.
Oath Keepers Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs and member Kenneth Harrelson have been in a D.C. jail while awaiting trial in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and their lawyers accused the lockup of “coerced medical experimentation” through the vaccines. The D.C. Department of Corrections does not force anyone to get vaccinated, the judge noted.
“Both men believe the Covid[-]19 vaccines present health risks and they should not [be] punished because they refuse to provide uninformed consent,” their attorneys Brad Geyer and Jonathon Mosely wrote in a motion to exceed the 45-page limit on filings.
An outline of the brief they wanted to file summarizes the opus the lawyers wanted to submit with the court.
The subheadings of the proposed brief included “SCOTUS Could Not Have Foreseen the Holocaust,” “Undisclosed Ingredients,” “Effects on Patients Upon Informed Consent,” “A Human Experiment Unlike Any Other,” “Pseudo-Science Displaces Science,” “Mandatory Everything,” and “C19 Conspiracy Structure.”
The outline alludes to the landmark Supreme Court decision of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which confirmed more than a century ago in 1905 that vaccine mandates are legal and constitutional. The line about the Supreme Court’s purported inability to see the Holocaust falls under the reference to that precedent.
“That Was Then; This Is Now,” the lawyers write of long-established Supreme Court precedent.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta shot down the proposal in a single, scathing paragraph.
“Whatever motion Defendants intend to file, the court will stop reading it after page 45,” Judge Mehta wrote in a minute order, rejecting the lawyers’ request for a larger filing.
The outline submitted by the Oath Keepers’ lawyers stated the conclusion would start at page 129.
“The court will not allow this case to become a forum for bombastic arguments […] or propagating fringe views about COVID-19 or vaccinations,” the judge continued. “To this court’s knowledge, the D.C. Department of Corrections does not require any person held there to accept a COVID-19 vaccine. If that is the intended basis of Defendants’ motion, they must file a brief of no more than five pages (excluding exhibits) establishing such a mandatory policy before the court will accept a longer filing.”
Judge Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, has ruled multiple times that Meggs is too dangerous for release pending trial, citing the defendant’s threats against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“During the detention hearing of co-defendant Kenneth Harrelson, the government produced evidence that, once inside the Capitol building, defendant and others walked to the north side of the Capitol toward the Senate chamber, only to be turned away by police officers,” Mehta wrote in April. “Defendant and others then walked to the south side of the Capitol toward the House chamber. […] He apparently was searching for at least one member of Congress in particular—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
According to the ruling, an unidentified third party sent a message that he “[w]as hoping to see Nancy’s head rolling down the front steps” to Meggs, who was quoted replying: “We looked forward her.”
The judge kept Harrelson behind bars for similar reasons.
Read the proposed conspiracy theory brief, below:
(Screenshot from Oath Keepers indictment)
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