WASHINGTON — A Florida man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers testified Monday that he believed they were participating in a historic “Bastille-type event” reminiscent of the French Revolution.
Graydon Young, a government witness at the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates, said he saw parallels between the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the French people who “stood up and resisted kings and tyrants” more than two centuries ago.
“The people were obviously attacking the government and their function,” Young said during the trial’s fifth week of testimony.
Young, 57, of Englewood, Fla., was the first Oath Keepers member to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge related to the Capitol attack. He was the second group member to testify for federal prosecutors at the trial.
Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and four others are charged with seditious conspiracy for what authorities have described as a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Republican incumbent Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden, who won the 2020 election.
Young pleaded guilty in June 2021 to conspiring to obstruct the joint session of Congress for certifying of the Electoral College vote.
Defense attorney James Lee Bright, one of Rhodes’ attorneys, pressed Young to point to any evidence of a criminal conspiracy or “explicit plan” for Oath Keepers to attack the Capitol.
“It was implicit to me at the time,” Young said. “I did not explicitly say, ‘Let’s commit a crime,’ but I thought it was implicit.”
“It was spontaneous,” Bright said.
“It was,” Young said.
The others on trial are Thomas Caldwell of Berryville, Va.; Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, Fla.; Jessica Watkins of Woodstock, Ohio; and Kelly Meggs of Dunnellon, Fl.
Jason Dolan was the first Oath Keepers member to testify at the trial. Dolan, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, said group members were prepared to use “any means necessary” on Jan. 6 to stop the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
After leaving the “Stop the Steal” rally where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, Young said he initially joined Meggs in escorting a rally speaker’s relative. But their “goal” changed, Young said, when Meggs learned that the crowd had breached police barricades at the Capitol.
“We all knew that there was the potential for a historical event to be taking place at the Capitol,” Young said.
Young was wearing a helmet and carrying a radio when he joined other Oath Keepers in walking up stairs on the east side of the Capitol in a military-style “stack” formation, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea. After entering the building, Young and others pushed against a line of police officers guarding the hallway connecting the Rotunda to the Senate, the filing says.
“We stormed and got inside,” Young later posted on Facebook before deleting his account.
Young said he became scared and ashamed as he realized how much trouble he was in after the riot. He choked up when a prosecutor asked him why he decided to cooperate with authorities.
“It’s really embarrassing,” he said.
Young, who served in the U.S. Navy reserves for 11 years, said he was a Trump supporter who “got really ginned up” by a steady diet of political videos on YouTube in 2020. Young’s sister in North Carolina told him about the Oath Keepers. He joined the group less than two months before Jan. 6, thinking “it might be an effective way to get involved.”
Young posted an encrypted message to other Oath Keepers on Dec. 20, 2020, that said “something more is required” than marches and protests. Asked what he was referring to in that message, Young said, “Something more effective and more forceful than just the protests.”
Young said he believed Trump’s claims of a stolen election, thought a “corrupt government” was responsible and felt a sense of “desperation and hopelessness” as Jan. 6 approached.