A member of the Oath Keepers who traveled with the group to Washington D.C. ahead of the Jan. 6 riot described a massive stockpile of firearms and other weaponry that allies had stashed in an Arlington, Va. hotel.

“I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,” recalled Terry Cummings, a Florida resident who said he joined the Oath Keepers in 2020 amid concerns about left-wing violence in Portland, Ore. and joined the group leaders’ private chats in advance of their Jan. 6 trip to D.C.

Prosecutors have described that arsenal — known as a “quick reaction force” or QRF — as a key element of the Oath Keeper leaders’ plot to subvert the 2020 election and help forcibly keep then-President Donald Trump in power. The group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, and several regional leaders are charged with conspiring to disrupt the transfer of power and preparing for violence to enforce their will.

Cummings displayed for jurors the AR-15 that he brought with him and contributed to the weapons stash, as well as a box of ammunition.

Justice Department prosecutors spent much of the day — in the second week of what’s likely to be a six-week trial against Rhodes and four co-defendants — revealing encrypted Signal messages between Rhodes and the group’s regional leaders organizing and activating plans to travel to Washington on Jan. 6. Many of those messages described their goal as preventing President Joe Biden from taking office and pressing Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which Rhodes contended would license the group to forcibly prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.

“We armed Americans have one good trick left up our sleeve. It’s the same one Samuel Whitmore [sic] used long ago, right along with all the other farmers who fired the shots heard round the world,” Rhodes wrote to Georgia Oath keepers on Dec. 14, 2020, describing the onset of the American Revolution.

In a Dec. 20, 2020, message to the same Signal chat, Georgia Oath Keeper Brian Ulrich — who has since pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy — said only action by Trump would prevent mass violence and death.

“Trump acts now maybe a few hundred radicals die trying to burn down cities,” he wrote. “Trump sits on his hands, Biden wins, millions die resisting the death of the 1st and 2nd amendment.”

Rhodes and his codefendants, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell, have contended that their trip was primarily about providing security to VIP attendees of Trump’s speech at the White House Ellipse and that their weapons cache was meant to support the group’s efforts if street violence broke out with counterprotesters on Jan. 6. They note that they never deployed those weapons into Washington, which has strict gun laws, even after a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol.

Cummings, a military veteran who is not charged with any crimes related to Jan. 6, said he traveled to Washington with Harrelson and Jason Dolan, who pleaded guilty last year for his Jan. 6-related actions, with the intent of supporting the group’s security details. He recalled meeting the VIP he was tasked with protecting but said he couldn’t recall her name, only that she appeared to be a “Hispanic female.” She remained by the northwest side of the Capitol even as members of the Oath Keepers continued to march toward the Capitol.

Cummings said that at some point as the group marched toward the Capitol, Meggs informed him that the building had been “breached.” He remembered Meggs asking someone whether the group should enter the Capitol.

Cummings left the group after using a port-a-potty outside the Capitol and only reconnected with them after they regrouped outside the Capitol. He recalled Rhodes shrugging off the decision by police to begin using tear gas against rioters.

“Suck it up,” he recalled Rhodes saying. “It’s just CS gas.”

Herschel Walker’s campaign was sent reeling after Monday night’s report that he allegedly paid for a former girlfriend to get an abortion. And before the Georgia Senate campaign had a chance to regain his balance, his son jumped in to deliver another gut punch in real-time.

To the very online crowd, Christian Walker is no stranger. The 23-year-old cuts an interesting profile: He’s built a social media brand on the right railing against “woke liberals” and supporting former President Donald Trump. He’s also been a booster of his father’s Senate campaign in the past, tweeting about introducing him at an event at Mar-a-Lago and posting other positive messages even before Walker’s Georgia Senate campaign.

That, perhaps, lent credibility to his haymaker of a tweet Monday night.

“I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us. You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” he tweeted in a post that got almost 130,000 likes.

Christian Walker has posted a number of statements and videos against his father in the day since the Daily Beast published an article quoting an unnamed former girlfriend who said Herschel Walker wrote her a $700 check to pay for an abortion. Christian Walker said he aims to put an end to the “lies” that Herschel Walker has put forward about his family values and morality, and restated allegations of abuse that his mother has leveled against Herschel Walker.

The campaign has been hit repeatedly by revelations about Walker’s past, including children Walker hadn’t claimed publicly and inflated, inaccurate statements about his businesses. Now, Walker has denied the Daily Beast’s reporting, which POLITICO has not independently verified.

Herschel and Christian Walker have largely existed on different sides of the Internet until now — a good portion of both men’s social media followers may not have realized the two were related until recently. But now, his son has become a central player in the Georgia Senate race just over a month before Election Day.

Why did Christian Walker start trending?

Christian Walker has more than a quarter million followers on Twitter, as well as more than a half-million on Instagram and 165,000 on TikTok, where he quickly amassed social media clout as a “free speech radicalist” on an app with relatively few conservative influencers of a similar brand compared to other platforms.

On Monday night, Christian Walker took to Twitter around the same time as the Daily Beast published its story.

“Every family member of Herschel Walker asked him not to run for office because we all knew (some of) his past,” he wrote in a tweet before unloading on Walker over his relationship with him and his mother.

Herschel Walker later tweeted on Monday night, “I LOVE my son no matter what.”

Christian Walker has been relatively quiet on the subject of his father’s other children in the past. On Tuesday, he uploaded a 4-minute video on Twitter and Instagram further explaining his past silence, writing that he did one campaign event for his father and then did not want to be involved further. His tone was more serious than his usual high-energy rant videos and podcast episodes.

“This is a candidate issue; this is not a me issue,” Christian Walker said in the video. “I wouldn’t have spoken out if there weren’t all these lies every day.”

What has Christian Walker’s previous role in the Georgia Senate race been?

Christian Walker posted an endorsement picture on Instagram with his father in August 2021, and has come to his father’s defense on social media prior to the initial reporting about Walker having fathered other children. He also once sold Herschel 2022 merch on his website, Cancl, though the page has since been deleted.

In Tuesday’s video, Christian Walker said the story behind his previous endorsement of his father was more complicated than those on the right and left made it seem.

“You know nothing about my life. My parents went through a dirty divorce, I went through a lot as a child,” he said. “You don’t know the ebbs and flows of our relationship… So for everyone making these wild theories and whatever, that’s crazy.

What is Christian Walker’s history with social media?

Christian Walker has had a tumultuous time on social media, particularly TikTok, where he had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers in less than a year. He quickly became an outspoken “free-speech radicalist” voice on the app that still has relatively few popular conservative influencers.

He also recently moved from Los Angeles to Miami, leading to a flurry of tweets supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis, even posting a picture with the Republican in August.

Christian Walker’s high-energy tirades, often filmed from his car, ranged from “cancel culture” topics to railing against Pride Month to parroting Trump’s election fraud theories — all of which have often been shot down by angry commenters and parodied by other users.

“‘The rich need to pay their fair share of federal income tax,’” he says mockingly in one older video. “The top 10 percent has paid over 70 percent of federal income tax, sweetheart. So how about you stop smoking weed on the couch all day and you go get a better job.”

He also ran into trouble while a student at the University of California Los Angeles, which put out a statement against his “hurtful language on social media” after fellow undergraduates reported his social media activity. Months later, Christian Walker posted screenshots of other students complaining about him in a class GroupMe, saying the school allowed “your students to treat me like crap” for his conservative beliefs.

In February 2021, Christian Walker’s profile briefly got suspended by the platform, and he has since rebuilt his following to 165,000 people on TikTok. He still garners hundreds of thousands of views per video, but his content has taken a turn from calling out liberals to bashing men who don’t bring enough to their relationships. His audience equally embraced the new bit — all amid commenters asking about Herschel’s other children to no response.

“Your honor, he’s slaying again,” one comment reads. “A broken clock is right two times a day,” other users frequently write under his new videos.

Has Christian Walker mentioned his father’s other children before?

Christian Walker had not previously made direct statements about the allegations against his father, but he has often called out men who have cheated on their spouses on TikTok. Some videos reference other celebrities, like Wild ‘n Out host Nick Cannon, who has fathered 10 children with multiple women, and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, whose messages with a woman who is not his wife recently went viral.

The Levine situation merited a 42-minute episode on Christian Walker’s podcast in September, the longest he’s ever recorded.

Some of Christian Walker’s most-viewed videos and comments have focused on men being unfaithful in relationships.

“Fathers, I’m gonna need you to come back from hanging out with your homeboys and banging people that aren’t your wife and take care of your kids and your baby mamas, do you mind?” Christian Walker said in one of his most viral videos last year.

“Get home and raise your kids!” he said in another June video directed at Cannon.

In Tuesday’s post, Christian Walker said he was breaking his silence about the “random kids across the country” who weren’t raised by his father.

“And you know my favorite issue to talk about is father absence. Surprise! Because it affected me,” he said in the video. “That’s why I talk about it all the time.”

Within hours of the 2020 election being called for Joe Biden, Stewart Rhodes — leader of the far-right Oath Keepers — began barraging associates with a consistent message: We must pressure Donald Trump to take extraordinary steps to remain in power.

And if he wouldn’t, the Oath Keepers would do it themselves, he said.

Prosecutors highlighted Rhodes’ messages, sent on Nov. 7, 2020, to two Signal groups, one labeled “Old-Leadership” and the other “Friends of Stone,” a reference to Trump confidant Roger Stone.

“The final defense is us and our rifles,” Rhodes sent to the Friends of Stone channel. “Trump has a duty to stand, but so far, her [sic] hasn’t. As Roger Stone said.”

He added: “Trump has one last chance right now to stand. But he will need us and our rifles too. But will he finally act? … So will you step up and push Trump to FINALLY take decisive action? That’s what we must do now. And then if he still refuses to do his duty, we will still have to do ours. And we will.”

The messages underscore that well before Trump had planned any actions to disrupt the transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, Rhodes was rallying supporters to oppose the incoming Biden administration and referencing potential armed action to prevent the new administration from taking power.

Prosecutors used the early hours of the seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes and four Oath Keeper leaders — the most significant case to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — to highlight how quickly the group began planning to use force to prevent the transfer of power. The government alleges that Rhodes and his top associates planned for an “armed rebellion” to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, amassing firearms ahead of Jan. 6 and joining a pro-Trump mob at the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

Attorneys for Rhodes and his four codefendants — Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, Thomas Caldwell and Kenneth Harrelson — say their actions were all lawful, even stockpiling heavy weapons in an Arlington, Va. hotel in preparation for a potential escalation of violence. They contend that they had been pressing for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that gives the president the power to deploy forces to quell civil unrest. But prosecutors say the law is merely a reference to a National Guard, not an unofficial quasi-militia like the Oath Keepers.

Top Trump allies pushed Trump to consider taking extreme measures, including invoking the Insurrection Act, in a final desperate bid to seize a second term he didn’t win. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was among those who met with Trump in the Oval Office in December 2020 to suggest using the military to seize voting machines in order to justify subverting the election. But he ultimately opted against taking that step, which frustrated Rhodes and his allies, according to messages previously unearthed by prosecutors.

Rhodes’ references to the Insurrection Act in the days immediately after Biden was called the 2020 victor were numerous. In a recorded meeting with 100 members of the Oath Keepers on Nov. 9, 2020 – portions of which were played for jurors Tuesday — Rhodes again said it was his hope to press Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.

“He doesn’t need to build some kind of complicated case about election fraud and collusion and RICO and conspiracy to justify bringing the Insurrection Act,” Rhodes told his associates. “He now has the facts.”

Rhodes then sketched out a plan of action that looked remarkably similar to what later occurred on Jan. 6: “So our mission’s going to be to go into DC, but I do want some Oath Keepers to stay on the outside and stay fully armed and prepared to go in armed if they have to. So if this shit kicks off, then you rock and roll, okay.”

Prosecutors also highlighted a message from Meggs, dated Nov. 8, 2020, in which he warns Rhodes about the strict firearms laws in Washington, D.C.

“It will need to be all hand to hand. You can’t even have 9mm ammo in your pocket,” Meggs said in the “Old-Leadership” chat. “Less than lethal mace, pepper spray and stun guns are allowed so that’s probably the only legal option.”

In a subsequent exchange, Meggs added: “And it doesn’t hurt to have a lead pipe with a flag on it.”

Rhodes and his co-defendants contend that their primary concerns were about performing security details for high-profile attendees of pro-Trump events on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, and their establishment of a weapons cache nearby was standard protocol for the security details they had long organized. Those weapons were never deployed, even as the pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol and sent members of Congress fleeing for safety. Nearly two-dozen members of the Oath Keepers were among the mob and had split up to comb different areas of the Capitol.

The trial of Rhodes and his allies is expected to last six to eight weeks, in what is the most significant prosecution to arise from the Jan. 6 attack to date. Several members of the pro-Trump Proud Boys are also facing seditious conspiracy charges for their involvement in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol, and they are slated to go to trial in mid-December.

Venezuela on Saturday freed seven Americans imprisoned in the South American country in exchange for the release of two nephews of President Nicholas Maduro’s wife who had been jailed for years by the United States on drug smuggling convictions, a senior U.S. official said.

The swap of the Americans, including five oil executives held for nearly five years, is the largest trade of detained citizens ever carried out by the Biden administration.

“We are relieved and gratified to be welcoming back to their families today seven Americans who had been wrongfully detained for too long in Venezuela,” said Joshua Geltzer, the deputy homeland security adviser.

It amounts to a rare gesture of goodwill by Maduro as the socialist leader looks to rebuild relations with the U.S. after vanquishing most of his domestic opponents. The deal follows months of back channel diplomacy by Washington’s top hostage negotiator and other U.S. officials — secretive talks with a major oil producer that took on greater urgency after sanctions on Russia put pressure on global energy prices.

Those freed include five employees of Houston-based Citgo — Tomeu Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo and Jose Pereira — who were lured to Venezuela right before Thanksgiving in 2017 to attend a meeting at the headquarters of the company’s parent, state-run-oil giant PDVSA. Once there, they were hauled away by masked security agents who busted into a Caracas conference room.

Also released was Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Marine corporal from Tennessee who was arrested in 2020 at a roadblock in Venezuela on what the State Department has called “specious” weapons charges, and Florida man, Osman Khan, who was arrested in January.

The United States freed Franqui Flores and his cousin Efrain Campo nephews of “First Combatant” Cilia Flores, as Maduro has called his wife. The men were arrested in Haiti in a Drug Enforcement Administration sting in 2015 and immediately taken to New York to face trial. They were convicted the following year in a highly charged case that cast a hard look at U.S. accusations of drug trafficking at the highest levels of Maduro’s administration.

Both men were granted clemency by President Joe Biden before the release.

The Biden administration has been under pressure to do more to bring home the roughly 60 Americans it believes are held hostage abroad or wrongfully detained by hostile foreign governments. While much of the focus is on Russia, where the U.S. has so far tried unsuccessfully to secure the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another American, Paul Whelan, Venezuela has been holding the largest contingent of Americans suspected of being used as bargaining chips.

At least four other Americans remain detained in Venezuela, including two former Green Berets involved in a slapdash attempt to oust Maduro in 2019, and two other men who, like Khan, were detained for allegedly entering the country illegally from neighboring Colombia.

The Biden administration did not release another prisoner long sought by Maduro: Alex Saab, an insider businessman who Venezuela considers a diplomat and U.S. prosecutors a corrupt regime enabler. Saab fought extradition from Cape Verde, where he was arrested last year during a stopover en route to Iran, and is now awaiting trial in Miami federal court on charges of siphoning off millions in state contracts.

The oil executives were convicted of embezzlement last year in a trial marred by delays and irregularities. They were sentenced to between eight years and 13 years in prison for a never-executed proposal to refinance billions in the oil company’s bonds. Maduro at the time accused them of “treason,” and Venezuela’s supreme court upheld their long sentences earlier this year. The men have all pleaded not guilty and the State Department has regarded them — and the two other Americans freed on Saturday — as wrongfully detained.