I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Friday, January 14th.

For those of you who have been waiting for some real criminal charges for January 6th, against some bigger fish organizers, they have now

started to come. Stuart Rhodes, founder of the armed extremist group, Oathkeepers, and 10 other

people, believed to be members of the group, were charged yesterday with seditious conspiracy.

That is, they allegedly planned in advance

to obstruct certification of President Biden's election

through the use of force.

The indictments helped to make the case

that the insurrection was no spontaneous riot,

but a planned event.

And if that's true, it raises questions

like about how much law enforcement knew or should

have known about it through social media postings and whether President Trump or any other

government officials knew what was coming and helped to plan it or fail to report it.

Stuart Rhodes denies the charge.

He founded Oathkeepers in 2009, President Obama's first year in office.

It's comprised largely of former law enforcement personnel and members of the military.

With me now is Washington Post National Security and Law Enforcement correspondent, Devlin

Barrett. He was on a Pulitzer Prize winning team for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election,

and as author of the book, October Surprise, How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and crashed an election.

Devlin, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thanks for having me, Brian.

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