WASHINGTON (AP) — Days after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes tried to get a message to then-President Donald Trump that urged him to fight to stay in power and “save the republic," according to trial testimony on Wednesday.

Rhodes said in his message — given to an intermediary — that the Oath Keepers would support the Republican president if he invoked the Insurrection Act and called them up as a militia.

The message never made it to Trump. The intermediary — a Texas software developer and military veteran who testified he had an indirect way to reach the president — was taken aback by it and went to the FBI instead.

“That’s asking for civil war on American ground ... that means blood is going to be shed on streets where your family is,” Jason Alpers told jurors. He decided not to pass along Rhodes' words. “It would have wrapped me into agreeing with that ideology in some way, which I did not.”

Jurors also heard a recording Alpers made of his meeting with Rhodes in a parking lot, where the Oath Keepers leaders said “we should have brought rifles,” in reference to the Capitol riot. The group did have a large stash of weapons in a hotel room in nearby Virginia, but didn’t use them that day. FBI agents also traced more than $17,000 in firearm parts, magazines, ammunition and other items Rhodes purchased after the insurrection.

Alpers testified as prosecutors began to wrap up their case against Rhodes and four associates in the most serious case stemming from the Jan. 6 attack to go to trial yet. Prosecutors sought to show that Rhodes continued plotting to stop the transfer of presidential power even after the Capitol riot, which delayed the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Alpers' connection to Trump is unclear, and he didn't elaborate on how he could have gotten the message to him. Alpers went to the FBI a few months later with the recording of his mid-January 2021 meeting with Rhodes.

The two men had a mutual acquaintance and Alpers agreed to meet the antigovernment group leader to potentially pass along a message to Trump. He met Rhodes with a group of supporters in a parking lot of an electronics store in the Dallas area.

Alpers recorded the meeting with a thumb-drive recording device to protect himself and ensure he had an accurate depiction of the message, he said. After chatting with Alpers, Rhodes wrote down a message on Alpers' phone for the president.

In it, Rhodes implored Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and promised that the Oath Keepers would support him if he did.

“You must use the Insurrection Act and use the power of presidency to stop him. All us veterans will support you,” Rhodes wrote. If Trump didn't act, Rhodes warned that Trump and his children would “die in prison." In the meeting, Rhodes also vented his frustration with the president to his new acquaintance.

“If he's not going to do the right thing and he’s just gonna let himself be removed illegally then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said, according to the recording of meeting. “We should have fixed it right then and there. I'd hang (expletive) Pelosi from the lamppost," Rhodes said, referring to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Rhodes and his co-defendants are the first among hundreds of people arrested in the Capitol riot to stand trial on seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil War-era charge that calls for up to 20 years behind bars. The stakes are high for the Justice Department, which last secured such a conviction at trial nearly 30 years ago, and intends to try two more groups on the charge later this year.

Rhodes' lawyers have said their client didn't commit seditious conspiracy because he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up the Oath Keepers as a militia to put down what Rhodes saw as a coup by Democrats.

The Insurrection Act gives presidents broad authority to call up the military and decide what shape that force will take. Trump floated invoking it at other times in his presidency but never did. Rhodes' lawyers have argued their client was merely lobbying a president to utilize a law.

While questioning Alpers on the stand, defense attorneys sought to portray the message as another bombastic way to call on an elected official to invoke a law. Alpers also acknowledged that he didn’t turn over the recording to the FBI immediately, saying he initially didn’t want to get involved.

On trial with Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, are Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer from Virginia, and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group.

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Jan. 6 at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege

WASHINGTON (AP) — As angry supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, ready to smash through windows and beat police officers, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes extolled them as patriots and harkened back to the battle that kicked off the American Revolutionary War.

“Next comes our ‘Lexington,'" Rhodes told his fellow far-right extremists in a message on Jan. 6, 2021. ”It's coming."

Jurors will begin weighing his words and actions on Tuesday, after nearly two months of testimony and argument in the criminal trial of Rhodes and four co-defendants. Final defense arguments wrapped up late Monday.

The jury will weigh the charges that the Oath Keepers were not whipped into an impulsive frenzy by Trump on Jan. 6 but came to Washington intent on stopping the transfer of presidential power at all costs.

The riot was the opportunity they had been preparing for, prosecutors say. Rhodes' followers sprang into action, marching to the Capitol, joining the crowd pushing into the building, and attempting to overturn the election that was sending Joe Biden to the White House in place of Trump, authorities allege.

Not true, the Oath Keepers argue. They say there was never any plot, that prosecutors have twisted their admittedly bombastic words and given jurors a misleading timeline of events and messages.

Hundreds of people have been convicted in the attack that left dozens of officers injured, sent lawmakers running for their lives and shook the foundations of American democracy. Now jurors in the case against Rhodes and four associates will decide, for the first time, whether the actions of any Jan. 6 defendants amount to seditious conspiracy — a rarely used charge that carries both significant prison time and political weight.

The jury’s verdict may well address the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, coming soon after 2022 midterm results in which voters rejected Trump’s chosen Republican candidates who supported his baseless claims of fraud. The outcome could also shape the future of the Justice Department’s massive and costly prosecution of the insurrection that some conservatives have sought to portray as politically motivated.

Failure to secure a seditious conspiracy conviction could spell trouble for another high-profile trial beginning next month of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other leaders of that extremist group. The Justice Department's Jan. 6 probe has also expanded beyond those who attacked the Capitol to focus on others linked to Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

In the Oath Keepers trial, prosecutors built their case using dozens of encrypted messages sent in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. They show Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection.”

“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Prepare your mind body and spirit,” he wrote shortly after the 2020 election.

Three defendants, including Rhodes, took the witness stand to testify in their defense — a move generally seen by defense lawyers as a last-resort option because it tends to do more harm than good. On the witness stand, Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and his associates — Thomas Caldwell, of Berryville, Virginia, and Jessica Watkins, of Woodstock, Ohio — sought to downplay their actions, but struggled when pressed by prosecutors to explain their violent messages.

The others on trial are Kelly Meggs, of Dunnellon, Florida, and Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, Florida. Seditious conspiracy carries up to 20 years behind bars, and all five defendants also face other felony charges. They would be the first people convicted of seditious conspiracy at trial since the 1995 prosecution of Islamic militants who plotted to bomb New York City landmarks.

The trial unfolding in Washington’s federal court — less than a mile from the Capitol — has provided a window into the ways in which Rhodes mobilized his group and later tried to reach Trump.

But while authorities combed through thousands of messages sent by Rhodes and his co-defendants, none specifically spelled out a plan to attack the Capitol itself. Defense attorneys emphasized that fact throughout the trial in arguing that Oath Keepers who did enter the Capitol were swept up in an spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage rather than acting as part of a plot.

Jurors never heard from three other Oath Keepers who have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy.

Over two days on the witness stand, a seemingly relaxed Rhodes told jurors there was no Capitol attack plan. He said he didn't have anything to do with the guns some Oath Keepers had stashed at a Virginia hotel that prosecutors say served as the base for “quick reaction force” teams ready to ferry an arsenal of weapons across the Potomac River if necessary. The weapons were never deployed.

Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former Army paratrooper, said his followers were “stupid” for going inside. Rhodes, who was in a hotel room when he found out rioters were storming the Capitol, insisted that the Oath Keepers' only mission for the day was to provide security for Trump ally Roger Stone and other figures at events before the riot.

That message was repeated in court by others, including a man described as the Oath Keepers' “operations leader" on Jan. 6, who told jurors he never heard anyone discussing plans to attack the Capitol.

A government witness — an Oath Keeper cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of a lighter sentence — testified that there was an “implicit” agreement to stop Congress’ certification, but the decision to enter the building was “spontaneous.”

“We talked about doing something about the fraud in the election before we went there on the 6th," Graydon Young told jurors. “And then when the crowd got over the barricade and they went into the building, an opportunity presented itself to do something. We didn’t tell each other that.”

Prosecutors say the defense is only trying to muddy the waters in a clear-cut case. The Oath Keepers aren't accused of entering into an agreement ahead of Jan. 6 to storm the Capitol.

Defense attorneys for Caldwell, Watkins and Harrelson worked on Monday to cast doubt on the timeline presented by prosecutors, saying that communications were hampered by overwhelmed cell towers and that other rioters forced Congress to recess before they arrived.

Prosecutor Jeffrey Nestler, though, said any lag was brief and the Oath Keepers were among the rioters who interrupted congressional proceedings by preventing lawmakers from coming back into session to certify the presidenial vote.

Citing the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy statute, prosecutors tried to prove the Oath Keepers conspired to forcibly oppose the authority of the federal government and block the execution of laws governing the transfer of presidential power. Prosecutors must show the defendants agreed to use force — not merely advocated it — to oppose the transfer of presidential power.

After the riot, Rhodes tried to get a message to Trump through an intermediary, imploring the president not to give up his fight to hold onto power. The intermediary — a man who told jurors he had an indirect way to reach the president — recorded his meeting with Rhodes and went to the FBI instead.

Rhodes told the man, speaking of Trump, “If he's not going to do the right thing and he’s just gonna let himself be removed illegally then we should have brought rifles.” He said, “We should have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang (expletive) Pelosi from the lamppost,” Rhodes said, referring to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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Richer reported from Boston.

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For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes of seditious conspiracy for leading a months-long plot to unleash political violence to prevent the inauguration of President Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The panel of seven men and five women deliberated for three days before finding Rhodes and a co-defendant guilty of conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transition of presidential power. Rhodes and all four co-defendants on trial were also convicted of obstructing Congress as it met to confirm the results of the 2020 election. Both offenses are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.