Thread by @mattbuxton

Oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging whether far-right Wasilla Rep. Eastman—a lifetime member of the Oath Keepers who just won his re-election—to serve in the #akleg under the AK Constitution's disloyalty clause will get underway soon.

I'll be livetweeting here.

Still on stand by, but the link to watch it will be here: stream.akcourts.gov

Alright, we are underway.

Attorney for Kowalke starts off by saying the case relies on two things:

Whether Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers
Whether the Oath Keepers "advocate concrete action to overthrow the government."

He says both are easy to prove and starts by going over Jan. 6.

The attorney speaking now on behalf of Kowalke is Goriune Dudukgian.

He's going over the Oath Keepers facing charges of seditious conspiracy for Jan. 6, noting a bunch have plead guilty or been convicted.

That'd include founder Stewart Rhodes (who's on Eastman's witness list).

Attorney Lael Harrison is representing the Division of Elections. She's basically continuing the argument that the Division of Elections shouldn't be a party to this and they still want out. She says it's clearly no longer an administrative appeal.

The refusal of the Division of Elections to enforce the loyalty clause has been an issue throughout the case, raising the question of who exactly would be responsible for enforcing it?

Judge McKenna has ruled previously that there has to be SOME mechanism for enforcement.

Harrison says that the disloyalty CAN be enforced, just not the Division of Elections. That it'd be up to... the Legislature or something.

"It should not be up to the division to make that determination."

Says DoE should remain neutral on disloyalty issues.

Eastman Attorney Joe Miller makes an objection to taking testimony from the two scheduled witnesses being brought by the plaintiffs.

It's just a registered objection that Judge McKenna will take up later.

Miller is saving his opening arguments for another day.

Jon Lewis, a research fellow on extremism at George Washington University, is the first witness up today. I believe the #akleg heard from him earlier in the year at their hearing about the Oath Keepers.

Republicans boycotted the hearing.

Going over a rundown of the groups that fall under the purview of the extremism program. Includes groups like the III%ers, Oath Keepers and others.

Lewis explains that the work the extremism center has done has been cited and used by both Republicans and Democrats.

His focus is on domestic terrorism and violence.

Lewis is asked for his opinion on the Oath Keepers.

He says it's a group that was taking concrete action that, if it had been successful, would have resulted in the overthrow of the U.S. government.

We get an objection from Miller, who says the questions are too leading.

Questions... like: "What is your opinion of the Oath Keepers?"

It's a bunch of foundational questioning, so Judge McKenna lets them continue with this line.

There's a report that they're bringing in.

Miller objects again. He says they're objecting to the whole thing.

After a bunch of back and forth about these written comments that they're trying to submit, Jon Lewis says this document was provided to the Alaska Legislature ahead of the hearing (that the Republicans skipped).

Now they're looking at several other documents like the indictment and charging documents against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes for seditious conspiracy.

Pretty similar testimony to what we heard in the #akleg hearing. Basically, Lewis argues that Oath Keepers have "wrapped themselves in this version of the American flag when in reality they viewed these flashpoints as opportunities to advance their own goals."

He also notes that it really got a lot of attention after Obama was elected (gee, wonder why) and that the federal government was preparing to put everyone in FEMA camps.

"They embraced every right-wing conspiracy theory."

Lewis notes that Oath Keepers, etc are in an echo chamber where conspiracies have ample opportunity to take root. Stuff like Stop the Steal (which, hey, Eastman also took a tour of the Cyber Ninjas' audit of Arizona).

adn.com/politics/alask…

Lewis says sure the oath might look normal but it isn't when they see themselves as the arbiter of the constitution.

"There was no higher power than themselves. ... Anything that you don't like or you disagree with can very easily be twisted to be unconstitutional or unlawful."

Lewis says the Oath Keepers actively sought out membership from the military (Eastman went to West Point), police and first responders.

He says it was intentional and played on their ideas of patriotism and military jargon.

Joe Miller objects to all the talk about Oath Keepers' plea agreements and indictments. He says he objects to them on relevancy grounds.

He says they only can be sure that Stewart Rhodes is an Oath Keeper at this time, but says they only represent a small portion of all members.

Dudukgian says that the documents are there for the expert to rely upon to build his opinion on the case.

Miller keeps saying they can't come in. "They don't have any independent evidentiary value. At all."

And 15 minutes for a comfort break.

They'll be back at 1120. Then go to 1230 for lunch. They'll finish up the day at 430.

Eastman and Miller kept their mic open for a while there. Didn't really hear much save for Eastman saying "Better you than me." Sounds like they caught on and have it muted now.

Back from break.

Jon Lewis continues, recapping some of the activities of the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6.

"All three of them paint a very homogeneous picture: They traveled with Stewart Rhodes ... with the intended purpose of preventing the peaceful transfer of power."

Alex Jones comes up.

Lewis brings up Rhodes' appearance on Alex Jones' show about what he saw as the "inevitable civil war."

Lewis goes over the legal thinking that Rhodes had in mind for Jan. 6 but says that it was essentially: "Act first and ask questions later."

And there's an email Stewart Rhodes sent out to Oath Keepers members—including Eastman—that contained a conspiracy about how Antifa, China and Soros were ACTUALLY the ones conspiring to steal the election.

It was sent on election day.

Julian Assange also comes up.

There was some expectation that Trump would invoke the insurrection act and mobilize groups like the Oath Keepers.

"In his mind, this had to be done as soon as possible."

A lot of talk about "puppets of the global elite."

Miller once again reminds us that he's maintaining an objection to any of this evidence being submitted. Miller claims the submission of the letters and postings by Rhodes to be hearsay.

Judge McKenna says they're not hearsay and are submitted.

More of the internal operations of the Oath Keepers heading into Jan. 6 and on the day of. The gist is, basically, that they were really serious about overthrowing the government.

Going over more of the Jan. 6 activities, which includes plans to gather weapons, set up roadblocks and other communications about their plans.

Miller reiterates his objections: "Obviously this is hearsay."

Jon Lewis says that part of Oath Keepers' leader Stewart Rhodes believed "Antifa super soldiers" and the Biden administration were gonna crack down on conservatives after the election.

After another objection from Joe Miller, we're now getting into the link between Oath Keepers and QAnon. Stuff like: Pedophilia rings, "Jewish puppet masters" and the deep state.

There's an attempt to talk about the transcript of an audio recording of Oath Keepers.

Joe Miller challenges whether it's accurate or not.

Jon Lewis says it's a document that was submitted into a federal case.

And into lunch. They're taking an hour-long break. Back at 1:45.

We're back from lunch and continuing the testimony of Jon Lewis, a research fellow on extremism at George Washington University. So far, he's been laying the groundwork of the Oath Keepers and Jan. 6.

#akleg #akelect

As a reminder, you can watch here: stream.akcourts.gov

We're getting into the Jericho March, a December 2020 event where Stewart Rhodes called for "bloody war." There's a technical difficulty with the video to be played, but here's a clip of it where they're Assange comes up again:

Some more talk about all the Oath Keepers' activities leading up to the attempted Jan. 6 insurrection. A bunch of staging of weapons, etc. Various security details, etc, about efforts to protect VIPs like... Roger Stone.

"They returned to the capitol on golf carts."

Now we're getting into the breach of the U.S. Capitol, which Jon Lewis says started after an Oath Keepers member helped breach the building and letting in a whole bunch of people like the "QAnon Shaman."

Even as the conspiracy machine was kicking into gear and people were claiming that it was a false flag perpetrated by Antifa (a claim that Eastman would later echo), Stewart reported the contrary: That it was a bunch of fed-up patriots.

How many actual Antifas have been found to be involved in Jan. 6? Jon Lewis says none. Says there's nothing to suggest their involvement or that it was a "peaceful protest."

After the whole attempted insurrection, Jon Lewis says Stewart Rhodes and company had dinner at an Olive Garden... where Rhodes detailed new anti-government efforts and called it the new revolutionary war.

At an Olive Garden.

And then after a while where Rhodes was attempting to delete evidence and hide his location from being tracked, Jon Lewis says, it sounds like everyone was starting to get bummed out because it looked like the insurrection wasn't going to happen after all.

Jon Lewis, continued, goes over some additional planning and messaging from Stewart Rhodes: "This is Rhodes planning for a guerilla war."

He said Rhodes was telling people to go "comms dark" and buy up food and ammo before a mass blackout where police would round everyone up.

The plaintiffs move to have these communications, which were part of the Rhodes trial, be admitted as evidence.

Joe Miller, surprise, objects to the admission: "I don't even know where to start. ... We've been taken by surprise."

After some back and forth, it turns out that this exhibit has been on the record for 10+ days.

Judge McKenna reminds everyone that this is an expedited case and everyone needs to be flexible.

They ask to take judicial notice of the verdict in the Stewart Rhodes case (where he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and is facing up to 60 years).

Miller objects. Judge McKenna overrules.

Lewis continues into Stewart Rhodes' post-Jan. 6 actions. That includes interfering with the inauguration and other transfers of power, including taking meetings with people in Trump's orbit.

That sounds like that's it for the first section of Jon Lewis' direct testimony.

Now they're gauging the appetite for remote hearings in the next few days because, SURPRISE, there's more snow in the forecast.

Plaintiffs are fine with it. Miller/Eastman are not thrilled, they want it in person.

Judge McKenna tells everyone to have a contingency in place in case they need to break early or possibly have Thursday be remote: "I'm a judge, not a weatherman."

And we're in recess 'til 3 p.m. when Joe Miller will get to do the cross of Jon Lewis.

Now we're into the cross examination by Joe Miller of Jon Lewis. Miller starts out by misidentifying Lewis, then asks him about the deposition of Mr. Kriner--the other main witness about the Oath Keepers.

He wants to know if Lewis also thinks Oath Keepers are terrorists.

Joe Miller keeps calling it "J6" then asks Jon Lewis to identify all the Oath Keepers involved in J6.

Miller then wants to know about all the Oath Keepers who were there but not charged. He wants to know the number of unindicted Oath Keepers.

Lewis says there's at least 4 who were part of the Quick Response Force and a "number" on capitol grounds who have not yet been charged.

Lewis notes the federal government hasn't named every single member of the Oath Keepers who were at January 6 but not been indicted.

Miller: "You don't have an idea (of every single unindicted Oath Keeper at January 6)?"

Lewis: "That's not been detailed in full by the govt."

Joe Miller: North Carolina was an autonomous splinter group not under the control of Stewart Rhodes.

Lewis: Is that a question?

Miller: It is.

Lewis says the "splinter" North Carolina cell was actually in plenty of communications with Stewart Rhodes' group.

Miller: Was there any record of Rhodes giving a direct order to North Carolina?

Lewis: I think that's a mischaracterization of how the call to action it occurred.

Miller argues that Oath Keepers is not part and parcel with its founder/leader Stewart Rhodes: You're conflating the group with Stewart Rhodes?

Lewis says they are essentially one in the same.

Miller's essentially working to call into Lewis' credibility. He's trying to snare Lewis in an apparent lie about how many members the Oath Keepers has.

Lewis says it's hard to nail down an exact number. It's roughly in the ballpark of 38,000 based on the leak.

Miller says the leak of the Oath Keepers' rolls was an "unlawful hack."

Lewis says he doesn't have direct knowledge of how the leak happened.

Miller seems to suggest that Stewart Rhodes' actions and communications (like an email that went to Eastman and everyone) don't reflect on the organization: "How's that an organizational decision or how is that a reflection of an organization's goals and aspirations?"

Joe Miller asks if Jon Lewis is aware of the app Signal or aware that members of the Alaska Legislature use Signal.

Jon Lewis says he's not aware of the Legislature's texting behavior.

Miller asks if Lewis is trying to smear the Oath Keepers because they use Signal.

Lewis says, no, of course not. He merely was referencing the tool they were using to communicate and coordinate.

Joe Miller asks how many other people were involved in the Signal chat beyond the 33 people who've been named and indicted by the federal government.

Jon Lewis says he simply doesn't know. The federal government hasn't disclosed everything.

Joe Miller seems completely incredulous that Jon Lewis doesn't somehow have a magical knowledge of everyone else that was in these Signal chats.

Jon Lewis: To date, the federal government has not given a fulsome account of the chats.

Miller asks about Lewis' work reviewing January 6 footage, etc.

Lewis says there's about 50-60 you can obviously identify as Oath Keepers (many more were in staging areas).

Miller says that's less than 1/500th of the total membership.

Joe Miller asks if there was any incitement of violence sent to all members of the Oath Keepers.

Jon Lewis says he can't opine on whether a November email went to a level of incitement of violence: "It was certainly a call to action for his organization."

Joe Miller asks for his layman's take on it.

Jon Lewis says, yes, then it's a call to prepare for violence against the U.S. Government.

Then Joe Miller downplays some of the calls to action. He says it was just about the long-standing conspiracies about voter fraud, "this is not something that just popped up in 2020."

He says it was just a call to take some action on a long-running concern.

Lewis says, sure, but it's a long road of things that led to Jan. 6. It was a call about voter fraud that led to all sorts of organization, weapons caches, etc.

Lewis: I'm unaware of any method to get the hits and clicks on an offline website.

Miller says it's just speculation then that people had actually been visiting the official Oath Keepers website and would have been incited by its messaging.

Miller suggests that only because like 50-60 Oath Keepers actually breached the capitol, then the messaging didn't actually work.

Miller: "Only 1/500th of the membership showed up. ... You want to conflate the messaging with Stewart Rhodes but a vast majority didn't show up."

Lewis says that's a wrong reading of it. He says it's clear the Oath Keepers organization was entirely driven by Stewart Rhodes and an extension of him and his ideologies.

He was sending out messages through Oath Keepers, not through his Hotmail account.

Now Joe Miller is getting into the bylaws of the Oath Keepers. It's pretty basic "We are upholding the U.S. Constitution" stuff. (Lewis has previously said it's an attempt to shroud themselves in the flag.)

Miller: Do you see anything in these bylaws that represents the anti-government sentiment that Stewart Rhodes apparently believes?

Lewis: No.

Miller: Isn't it fair to assume that someone who saw the bylaws and understand what the organization is all about? "That these bylaws define the four corners of the organization."

Lewis says, no, they don't reflect the organization.

Miller: Why is it named Oath Keepers?

Lewis says it's an attempt to co-opt the oath military and other people make to the U.S. Constitution.

After a bunch of back and forth.

Lewis: "I do not believe Stewart Rhodes is a patriot. I do not believe Stewart Rhodes follows the constitution."

Lewis says all the members knew who Stewart Rhodes was and what his ideas were on the U.S. Constitution.

Lewis: "There's no gray area when it comes to the true goals and motivations of the Oath Keepers. It's certainly not a non-partisan organization to defend the constitution. It uses the oath as a cover, as propaganda, as nothing else."

Miller asks if anyone who's visited the Oath Keepers website should be considered one in the same as Stewart Rhodes.

Lewis says no, but it should be abundantly clear what the whole organization was about.

Miller wants to know if Lewis knows about the single event that started Oath Keepers.

Lewis says no, "In reality, in the actual world we live in" he says there's no single event. The closest you get, he says, is the election of a Black president.

Miller notes that Jon Lewis believes that Rep. Eastman is both a white supremacist and an antisemite.

Lewis says, yep.

Miller is going deep on Eastman's white supremacy and antisemitism, asking where Lewis ever got the idea that Eastman is a white supremacist and an antisemite.

Lewis says it's a specific post that Eastman made.

Miller: "Let's go next to the Hitler reference."

Which Lewis notes would be this image:

Then Lewis also notes that on the antisemitism link he drew with Eastman was Eastman retweeting a "virulent antisemite."

Joe Miller asks if drawing connections between "Hitlerian" images and covid-19 would make someone an antisemite.

Jon Lewis: "Going to a holocaust museum and choosing of all images to take a photo next to a quote by the architect of the holocaust would go further to me, an expert, that there are potentially some antisemitic beliefs floating around."

Judge McKenna says they're not here today to battle over whether Rep. David Eastman is an antisemite, tells him to move on from the issue.

Now we're getting references to the Bundys and the Oath Keepers' militant presence at the Ferguson protests.

But were there any Alaskans at those events? Lewis says he's not sure.

Who's still the head of Oath Keepers? Stewart Rhodes.

And where is Stewart Rhodes? In prison.

Could he still be leading an insurrection? It's possible.

Is it still fair to conflate the two? Yes.

Did you know it was handed over to Col. Siemens? Not sure that's real.

Joe Miller asks if the word "overthrow" ever shows up in the indictments.

Jon Lewis says, no, "overthrow" isn't in there but he says there's a difference between that and seditious conspiracy.

Lewis also notes that there's a difference between their actions and what the government thinks they can prove at trial.

"It clearly shows a conspiracy, in sum and substance, to prevent the peaceful transfer of power of presidential power, which would overthrow the government."

Joe Miller: "Wait a second. Or the transfer is delayed, the voter fraud is discovered and a different outcome happens."

Miller just now arguing what constitutes overthrowing the U.S. government. It's just a little pause of the U.S. government, I guess.

Jon Lewis says all the efforts to track down Nancy Pelosi wasn't this fantastical image of asking for a pause: "They are not attempting to ask her to delay the certification of the election peacefully."

Miller, responding: "So you're an expert on vote integrity?"

Miller trying to catch Lewis in something regarding his deposition. Something about voter fraud. I'm not sure.

Miller says the followers were just doing it "because they felt the election had been stolen, not because they wanted to overthrow government."

Lewis says that's not really the truth because they were overthrowing the democratic process. Keeping Trump in office as the Oath Keepers had envisioned, he says, would have necessarily overthrown the U.S. government.

Miller now onto Oath Keepers trying to find Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 6.

Miller suggests that "Violence, in of itself, against an individual as terrible as it might be is not an attempt to overthrow government, is it?"

Lewis says it is when that person is the Speaker of the House.

Then Joe Miller asks whether the jury convictions of Stewart Rhodes and other individuals prove the "theory" that he was directing the Oath Keepers to attempt to overthrow the government.

Lewis says it's not a theory, it's a guilty verdict.

Miller notes that some of the Oath Keepers had permits to be on restricted capitol grounds, suggesting their presence was protected.

Lewis notes that's a theory offered at other courts and have been totally rejected. He says the permits also didn't cover violence.

Miller says the Oath Keepers were really just there to provide security for the Stop the Steal rally. "They were there to provide security, weren't they?"

Lewis~I would dispute that's why they came. As the jury verdicts make clear, the Oath Keepers were for seditious conspiracy.

Lewis adds that people can do two things. That they were there to "provide security" is just a footnote in the history of it all, but it doesn't mean that they weren't planning on breaching the capitol afterwards.

Lewis reiterates that their permits didn't permit violent insurrection against the U.S. government.

Joe Miller: "With respect to patriotism. You talked about twisted patriotism, what do you think is proper patriotism?"

Lewis says commitment peaceful, legitimate elections and peaceful transfers of power are a good standard.

Joe Miller asks what's more important in the peaceful legitimate transition of power, the peaceful or legitimacy?

Lewis says he doesn't rank them.

Joe Miller asks if someone believes the election was illegitimate is that patriotism or twisted patriotism?

Judge McKenna is just confused, asks if he's talking about someone peacefully protesting.

Miller just gives up on his question altogether.

And that's it for today.

Sounds like they'll resume the questioning tomorrow, weather pending.