Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes will go on trial next week for seditious conspiracy over the January 6 riots on the US Capitol, considered one of the most serious cases to emerge from the insurrection.

Jury selection began Tuesday and could take several days with the trial expected to last at least five weeks.   

Amid complaints by Rhodes legal team and the others, the judge began winnowing the pool of potential jurors. These jurors will decide the fate of the first Jan. 6 defendants to stand trial on the rare Civil War-era charge.    

The case against Rhodes and his Oath Keeper associates is the biggest test yet for the Justice Department in its massive Jan. 6 prosecution and is being heard in federal court not far from the Capitol.  

Seditious conspiracy can be difficult to prove, but conviction calls for up to 20 years behind bars. The last time someone pled guilty to seditious conspiracy was 30 years ago.    

Attorney for Rhodes, a former U.S. Army paratrooper and a Yale Law School graduate from Granbury, Texas, and four other members of the violent mob, cannot get a fair hearing in Washington, DC. 

US District Judge Amit Mehta denied the defense attorney's latest bid to move the trial out of Washington. The judge acknowledged that no juries have acquitted Jan. 6 defendants so far, but said that doesn't tell him about 'bias or inherent bias of jurors in the District of Columbia.'