Amid the mayhem of the January 6th insurrection, Jon Ryan Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol wearing a hat that said “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member.”
In fact, he would abandon his oath less than three months after being arrested. Now his comrades may be one step closer to jail because of his disloyalty.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Schaffer, a founding member of the extremist group that helped plot the attack on the U.S. Capitol, has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate against others who participated in the wanton and deadly destruction.
Schaffer has been jailed since January 18th. According to The Washington Post:
The plea marks a new stage in the historic investigation, as prosecutors seek to work up the chain of defendants to gather evidence and better understand the full scope of any planning and organizing of the violence — particularly among groups like the far-right Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Dozens of members from both groups appeared to act in concert to storm the building, prosecutors have alleged.
The news coincides with a significant milestone: it’s been one hundred days since Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building, killing five. Since then, more than 400 people have been arrested on charges ranging from trespassing to assaulting a police officer.
In recent weeks, prosecutors have zeroed in on the Oath Keepers in particular. From The New York Times:
At this stage of what is shaping up to be a marathon legal process, the government’s most prominent cases have been filed against the Oath Keepers, a militia that recruits former military and law enforcement officers, and the Proud Boys, an organization of leftist-hating brawlers that slyly bills itself as defending “Western” values.
Prosecutors have repeatedly said an array of electronic communications — Facebook messages, online meeting room chats and conversations on a digital walkie-talkie app — show that the groups conspired not only internally to storm the Capitol, but may also have coordinated with each other.
According to the FBI, Schaffer is a longtime backer of the Oath Keepers, which was founded in 2009. At a pro-Trump rally in November, Schaffer allegedly said, “We’re not going to merge into some globalist, communist system. It will not happen. There will be a lot of bloodshed if it comes down to that, trust me.”
Schaffer plead guilty to two felony charges that could land him in jail for 30 years: obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and trespassing on restricted grounds of the Capitol while armed with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He had faced additional charges before he agreed to cooperate.
Schaffer’s guilty plea deals a blow to the conspiracy theory that members of Antifa – disguised as Trump supporters – spearheaded the violence.
