Arizona Man Accused of Readying ‘Quick Reaction Force’ for Oath Keepers on Jan. 6 Pleads Not Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy – By Marisa Sarnoff (Law and Crime) / January 28, 2022
An Arizona man accused of readying a so-called “quick reaction force” allegedly armed and ready to cross the Potomac by boat to storm D.C. on Jan. 6 pleaded not guilty to seditious conspiracy and other charges on Friday.
Edward Vallejo, 63, of Arizona, was one of the key figures in the plot by members of the Oath Keepers militia group to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Vallejo wasn’t part of the two “stacks” of Oath Keeper members that prosecutors say forced their way in to the Capitol building that day. But according to the indictment, he was standing by at the Comfort Inn Ballston in Virginia, ready to join the violence at any moment. Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes allegedly envisioned a “worst case scenario” for those militia members where former President Donald Trump “calls us up as part of the militia to to assist him inside DC,” prosecutors wrote in a legal brief last May.
