Oath Keepers



Oath Keepers is a far-right, anti-government militia organization founded by Elmer Stewart Rhodes III in 2009. Oath Keepers is considered to be part of the broader 'patriot movement', which includes other militias, sovereign citizens and tax protesters. Their membership consists of "current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to 'defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'" — but any old gun nut can join as an associate member. That sounds all perfectly reasonable — except that members frequently have a different idea of what "defend the Constitution" means than ordinary people or Constitutional scholars: Oath Keepers' belief that they will prevent tyranny revolves around the New World Order conspiracy theory. In practice, this can mean inciting members to intimidate voters they don't like or engaging in an insurrection against a democratically-elected government.

Rhodes, who once worked for Ron Paul, has been described by his estranged wife as expressing paranoid views about the government. According to Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, Rhodes' appearance is comparable to a performance, a claim that is confirmed to some degree by Rhodes' inability to draw large live audiences and his not actually training a militia. Rhodes' followers are largely armchair militants whom Rhodes grifts according to Van Tatenhove, and that would seem to be confirmed by Rhodes' allegedly leading a force of only 18 Oath Keepers at the 2021 U.S. coup attempt — from a safe distance.

Origins
According to the ADL, Oath Keepers is similar to a less-successful organization founded by Jack McLamb in the 1990s, Police Against the New World Order. Oath Keepers was founded in 2009.

Rhodes' foundational idea was that Hitler's rise to power could have been prevented if German soldiers and police had disobeyed unconstitutional orders: "It" (a full-blown totalitarian police state) cannot happen here if the majority of police and soldiers obey their oaths to defend the Constitution and refuse to enforce the unconstitutional edicts of the "Leader."

There are a few problems with this Nazi analogy:
 * 1) Hitler did not rise to power all at once. He first attempted a coup (the Beer Hall Putsch) in 1923, for which he was sent to prison. After release from prison, he ran for President in 1932 and lost to von Hindenburg, who then appointed Hitler as Chancellor. Hitler then bent the law and constitution to his liking using the Reichstag Fire Decree (a series of key decrees, legislative acts, and case law).
 * 2) Hitler's rise to power was technically done legally under German law at the time. He was appointed chancellor as the German constitution provided, he obtained the emergency powers under the Reichstag decree issued by President Hindenburg, his party won the March 1933 elections, and then he had the legislature pass a constitutional amendment making him dictator. Even the extrajudicial detention of leftists in concentration camps was legal loopholed as "" & – these naughty leftists were simply being "protected" from the good and righteous German people.
 * 3) The police and military didn't just "follow orders", they were often enthusiastic supporters of Hitler. The Nazi ranks, especially the, were filled with disaffected, right-wing World War I veterans, including Göring, Röhm, and even Hitler himself; and right-wing militias called the essentially became a handy recruitment pool for the party in its early days. The police were also sympathetic to the Nazis- once in power, the Nazis purged the various German police forces of political opponents (and Jews). Very few police were actually purged- for example, only 31 of the 2,600 police in Cologne were fired.
 * 4) Rhodes was aiming this insurrectionist ideology at Hillary Clinton (whom he referred to as "Hitlery"), who at that time was making her first run for POTUS. Clinton, it should be noted, has at no time violated her Constitutional oath (first as US Senator in 2001, then as Secretary of State in 2009), nor has she proposed changes to the constitution except through the democratic means of constitutional amendment (a proposed campaign finance reform amendment to counter Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ).

Leadership and membership
The greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our federal government. One of the best and easiest solutions is to depend on local officials, especially the sheriff, to stand against federal intervention and federal criminality. Their website is only known to have listed members of the Board of Directors from 2010-2016. The Board of Directors has been composed of: • 2 According to his estranged wife, the board members changed every few months, whenever began to see through Rhodes bullshit. The situation paralleled Rhodes employment history before he founded Oath Keepers, where he would frequently get fired for getting into arguments with his supervisors.

Since 2017, Karriman was shoved out for demanding reforms against alleged embezzlement by an IT administrator, and other board members have resigned. The membership list was leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Membership from the list indicated that two-thirds had a background in the military or law enforcement; alarmingly there were a "20-year special agent in the Secret Service, and two people who said they were in the FBI." The total membership was claimed by the organization to be 35,000 in 2016, but is more likely to be closer to a couple of thousand, at least in part due to fleeting membership.

Greg McWhirter served as vice president of the organization at around the time of the 2021 coup attempt. He was also an FBI informant.

Besides being part of the massive data breach of the Epik web hosting company, Oath Keepers separately suffered another data breach a few days later that exposed "10,000 emails from the inboxes of high-profile members including state chapter leaders". In addition, numerous members of the Oath Keepers, as well as at least one Republican party member, were revealed to be active members of various police forces across the US.

Activities
Myself and Nick established a defensive security position in front of Pepperoni Bill's Pizza.

Cliven Bundy
Oath Keepers provided support during the 2014 federal standoff with Cliven Bundy at his ranch over grazing rights, and again at the Bundy-related standoff at the 2016 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. During the ranch standoff, Rhodes "claimed to have intelligence that the Obama administration was planning a drone strike on the Patriot encampment," which needless to say did not eventuate.

Civil war threats
Rhodes has on several occasions made threats that civil war was forthcoming.
 * 2009: At the founding of Oath Keepers
 * 2014: Regarding the Malheur standoff
 * 2016: If Hillary Clinton won the 2016 U.S. presidential election
 * 2019: Regarding forcing legislators back to work to vote on cap-and-trade climate change legislation
 * 2020: After the killing of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum by Kyle Rittenhouse, and Aaron Danielson allegedly by Michael Reinoehl

Black Lives Matter
During the 2014 and 2015 Black Lives Matter protest, heavily armed members of Oath Keepers — all white men — showed up uninvited and unannounced. The Oath Keepers claimed that they were on the protesters' side, but St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar found their presence to be "unnecessary and inflammatory." One of the protesters found the presence of the Oath Keepers to be intimidating and frightening, stating:

Rhodes has explicitly stated that Oath Keepers is not a racist or anti-semitic organization, using a variant of the friend argument by appealing to his Mexican and Apache ancestry. The Oath Keepers bylaws explicitly bans openly-racist people from joining in Article VIII, Section 8.02(b):

They don't seem to understand that coming uninvited and heavily armed to a peaceful protest unnecessarily increases tensions just by their mere presence, regardless of their true intentions.

2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection
We have met the enemy and he is us. You sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and the very fabric of our democracy. The moment you are released you will be prepared to take up arms against your government. Rather than support the peaceful democratic transition of government, several members of the Oath Keepers decided to join an insurrection in support of autocratic rule. Nineteen members or affiliates of the Oath Keepers have been accused of conspiracy as well other charges in the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, an additional three face non-conspiracy charges. Among those facing conspiracy charges are: • 2 Additional Oath Keepers charged were:
 * Robert Gieswein, charged with assaulting police, civil disorder and obstruction of police and government
 * Roberto A. Minuta, who provided security for Roger Stone on January 6, charged with official proceeding and aiding and abetting, and tampering with documents or proceedings
 * Jon Schaffer, guitarist of Membership status disputed, but wore an "Oath Keepers Lifetime Member" hat during his participation in the riot. Charged with six crimes, including unleashing pepper spray intended for  on police. On April 16 2021, pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress (punishable by up to 20 years in prison) and trespassing on restricted grounds of the Capitol with a dangerous weapon, and is intending to cooperate with the government.

Oath Keepers founder Rhodes (who previously was alleged to have been in direct communication with Oath Keepers who have been charged with conspiracy on January 6) and 10 other Oath Keeper members were charged with the far more serious charge of on January 13 2022. The indictment contained alleged communications that both contained details about Rhodes plotting and coordinating the Capitol attack with other Oath Keepers and also Rhodes planning for future attacks. The indictment also details Rhodes allegedly spending thousands of dollars in ammunition in anticipation of "Civil War 2.0".

More than a dozen members have been charged with conspiracy (including some of the above).

In November 2022, Rhodes and Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy; Rhodes and Meggs as well as the other three defendants were also convicted of obstruction of Congress.

In late January 2022, Hackett, Minuta, Moerschel, and Edward Vallejo were also convicted of seditious conspiracy, along with two other conspiracy charges and obstruction of Congress.

In March 2022, Isaacs, Connie Meggs, Steele, and Sandra Parker were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct Congress' proceedings as well as several other charges; Michael Greene and Parker were acquitted of more serious charges but convicted of misdemeanors.

On May 25 2023, Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Notably, this sentence was enhanced due to the judge accepting that his conduct met the legal definition of terrorism intended to influence the actions of government.

Allegations of domestic violence
During a 2018 divorce proceeding, Rhodes's wife, Tasha Vonn Adams Rhodes, made credible allegations that Stewart Rhodes had a history of violent outbursts against his family, including choking his daughter and making threats with a loaded gun.