As the lawyer for defendant Thomas E. Caldwell began his opening statement Monday, he said that the Oath Keepers regularly used “quick reaction forces” with multiple weapons as a contingency for rallies they protected in recent years.
The government has alleged that Caldwell, a Virginia resident, helped coordinate the gathering of guns and ammunition for a “quick reaction force” across the river from D.C., to be summoned as part of the effort to stop the congressional certification of the electoral college vote. Caldwell’s attorney, David Fischer, emphasized to the jury that, “the verb is to react, it’s not to act. Anybody who has served five seconds in the United States military knows that a quick reaction force or quick response team reacts to emergency situation. It’s a ‘break the glass in case of emergency’ group of people, typically EMTs or other medical personnel, to come in as a rescue unit. By definition a QRF would not be used to attack anything, including the United States Capitol.”
Read More: U.S. in Oath Keepers trial outlines alleged plotting before Capitol attack