Image Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images 
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes says he’ll testify before the Jan. 6 House Select Committee – but only if his testimony can be made in public.
On Friday, Rhodes’ lawyer said his client, who’s currently in federal custody on seditious conspiracy charges, would offer testimony if he could give it live in-person, instead of from jail.
“He’s willing to waive his Fifth Amendment rights, he wants to testify in public, and he wants to testify live,” Rhodes’ attorney James Lee Bright stated Friday.
“I don’t think they’ll go along with that,” he added.
Bright argued Rhodes does not want to submit a videotaped deposition, “saying he doesn’t trust the panel to air Rhodes’ remarks in full,” reports Politico.
Besides, Rhodes has already been deposed by the committee, and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination several times.
Rhodes’ offer comes as the committee is set to meet again next Tuesday where they will focus on alleged Proud Boy and Oath Keeper involvement in the events of Jan. 6.
According to Politico, Bright doesn’t anticipate the committee will take Rhodes up on his offer, since they have thus far not honored other requests to give live testimony.
If they did acquiesce to the request, it could cause a shake-up unlike anything seen in the previous kangaroo court processions. Bloomberg notes:
The nine-member panel has been able to make its presentations mostly with scripted narratives, limited questioning of mostly cooperative witnesses, and edited video of previous closed-door testimony.
Rhodes is currently awaiting a Sept. 26 trial and is being held in solitary confinement at a detention center in Oklahoma, from which he last testified to the committee in February.